Share your Easter Traditions!

[bnme]

Food, activties (spiritual or non), gifts, etc...

I am having Easter dinner at my house this year and I am looking for menu and other festive ideas or new traditions to start.

My family always made something called Pizza Rustica, which is a savory pie filled with meats and cheeses. My grandmother used to always make a sweet bread with hard boiled eggs baked in and fried bow tie cookies. I think also a cabbage soup called vertz (sp?).

[Meatball Mommie]

My Polish grandmother used to have Easter at her house and we always had ham (served cold), potato salad and stuffed cabbage rolls. We had the fried bow tie cookies as well (sounds like krish-chick-ie but I have no idea how to spell it in Polish!).

My MIL thinks I am funny because I always request ham with potato salad for Easter (can't be mashed potatoes!), but the tradition is so ingrained! I also have to have pork on New Years Day - no chicken, because it's bad luck ("You'll be scratching for money all year"!)

My MIL has an Easter egg hunt for the neighborhood kids. She hides plastic eggs filled with cheap toys (they're from some catalog and really inexpensive) around her yard and then has all the neighborhood families over. She started this about 5 yrs ago (we have the first grandchild and he's ony 6 mo, she just loves children!).

Deviled eggs are also really popular for Easter.

[aliceinwonderland]

I ALWAYS make a very nice leg of lamb for Easter...That's all. Once my Easter bunny arrives (my baby boy is due April 19th, I'm sure we'll add more traditions!!

[bluej]

Our tradition lately has been fighting over which family to spend it with. Oh and spending a ridiculous amount of money on dressy clothes that the kids refuse to ever wear again.

If it's just us, the kids do an Easter egg hunt in the morning and look for their baskets. Then we go to Church and out for a nice brunch afterward.

If we spend it w/ my family the kids hunt for eggs and their baskets at my parents, then Church, then brunch at my sister's. Ham, potatoes au gratin, pea salad, deviled eggs, dinner rolls and sugar cookies and fruit pies for dessert. It's pretty much the same thing at my IL's, just different people and a slightly different menu.

I love my family and love spending time w/ them, however, I'm looking forward to moving farther away so we can go back to being just us for some of these holidays.

[sntm]

>My grandmother used to always make a sweet bread with hard boiled eggs baked in and fried bow tie cookies.

Easter bread -- yes, my MIL makes it and my DH has been trying to replicate it. One tip -- don't use hard-boiled eggs from the fridge -- the dough around the eggs stays mushy.
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shannon
not-even-pregnant-yet-overachiever
trying-to-conceive :)
PREGNANT! EDD 6/9/03
mama to Jack 6/6/03

[llcoddington]

After church, maple baked ham with pineapples, potatoes augratin, mixed vegetables, rolls, salad and an apple pie!

Lana
mommy to Lauren 12/5/03

[mommd]

The day before Easter, we go to church and have a basket full of food blessed. This usually consists of eggs, sausage, ham, bread, butter, vinegar and horseradish. On Easter, after church, we then have dinner which includes the food that was blessed and a cake (kind of like a bundt cake) for dessert.

Last year it was a big deal because I was baptized in the Catholic church. Now with DD here this year, I will make her a basket and dress her in the cutest little dress I can find! :)

[new_mommy25]

My grandmother
>used to always make a sweet bread with hard boiled eggs baked
>in

Ahh yes, the bread. My favorite part of Easter. We would go to church then come home and have that for breakfast. We weren't allowed to attack our Easter baskets until after church. Then we would drive to Grandma's and meet up with the whole family. There would be an egg hunt for all the kids. Then we'd just laze around the house, playing, talking, men watching sports. For dinner it was always a pot luck. My mom always brought her home made rolls which are the best I've ever had.

Thats what I miss about not being close to family.

DH and I have no family around us at all so the only thing we do on Easter is go to church and maybe out to dinner somewhere. And thats if one of us isn't working. Now that we have DS I guess we need to come up with a tradition.

[August Mom]

We used to always go to the sunrise service on Easter morning, then have breakfast, then have an Easter egg hunt and then have a mid-afternoon meal. Generally we have ham and au gratin potatoes with various other side dishes. Sometimes we have pork tenderloin. Occasionally, we have roasted turkey breast, stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Now, our church doesn't have a sunrise service (and I'm not sure I could make it to one anyway with a toddler to get up and ready). Lately, we've been going to the ILs each year. There, the tradition is for MIL to make sticky buns. They are yeast rolls that bake together and then you pull them apart. There's a sweet mixture of corn syrup, sugar and pecans in the bottom of the pan. Then you put the dough on top and bake. When it's done, you invert the pan and, viola, sticky buns. They are very tasty and DH and his brothers insist on having them. So, we have those for breakfast and then go to church. Then we have the Easter egg/Easter basket hunt and then a late lunch. The menu is generally pork - ham, pork loin or pork tenderloin.

[lukkykatt]

My mother's side of the family is Russian. We always have ham and potato salad for Easter too - I never knew anyone else who did that! We also have pascha, which is a special bread made at Easter - I am going to try to make it this year for the first time!

I give the kids Easter baskets with mostly small toys and bags of pretzels and Teddy Grahams. I put in a tiny amount of candy just for good measure. I am going to try to have the non-candy Easter baskets for as long as I can get away with it!

[brigmaman]

Ooohh! We make the Pizza Rustica, too! I never new what it was called until a new Italian gourmet store started selling thier version. We also have another pie called grain pie. I've had the sweet bread, but I don't know if it was homemade.
We also have a soup that has chicken, broth, and ricotta cheese. I don't like it, but the rest of my family LOVES it!
ETA- sunrise mass at the beach is a newer tradition we've started/