My sons came home today to celebrate a family day of Easter. Back some years ago, our sons and sometimes our daughter started a tradition of coming home to go to church on Easter Sunday and then out here to the farm for dimmer. We’ve worshiped together many years at our little country church. Back when my kids were little we would go to church and then to my husband’s parents for dinner. His mother didn’t think it was a proper Easter day without her children all coming home. Since we went to the same church as they did, we shared worship on those days too.
It seems as though our family traditions kept going – just changed houses after his parents were no longer with us. Somewhere along the way, I started having an Easter egg hunt for the grandkids.
A few years ago I saw a post or article about a woman who started taking pictures of her parents coming out to wave goodbye to her after she got in her car to leave each year after a visit. I don’t think it was a special holiday visit, but it might have been. Anyway, after she got in the car, she’d snap their picture. At first she was by herself leaving. Then she had a child and her parents were waving at her and the child. On and on it went with one picture a year with the child growing up and the parents getting older. Her son grew up and she was alone on her visits again. Then one year, it was only her mother waving goodbye to her after her father died. And eventually, the driveway was empty in a last picture. The pictures were a mixture of happiness and sadness as the years passed. That one picture she took each time showed how it is with families.
The pictures I’m showing here of the passing of the years is all about joy. The sad times haven’t come to visit yet. Well, except for my mother not being here anymore to watch those Easter egg hunts. She did like watching the kids racing around the yard looking for those eggs. But mostly, these pictures just show my grandchildren growing up — going from babies to adults or almost adults.
In some of the pictures it was almost like herding cats, to capture them all sitting still and looking at the camera like in that top pictures. You had to be ready and snap that picture quick.
But then they grew older. The big sister and grandma corralled the twin boys to grab the picture, but that didn’t mean somebody wouldn’t forget to face forward.
Eventually, they were all old enough to almost sit still before they got the fun of hunting Easter eggs in the grass.
Some years went by without pictures. Seems I remember a few years when the weather didn’t cooperate and we had to have an in the house hunt. That year and maybe other ones as well, I must have been too busy trying to keep up with them all to think about taking pictures. Some years, one of the families was on vacation since their school’s spring break often fell around Easter.
Along the way, we’ve added a few extras as the kids have found that special someone to love.
Last year, Darrell and I both had Covid and Easter fun at Grandma’s house was canceled. But this year we were able to be together on Easter Sunday again. We filled up two pews at church even though a few of the kids came straight to the house without making it to church. For the WV kids, they have to get on the road early to make it to church since it’s a three hour drive. Darrell didn’t get to church either since his cast is so cumbersome for him. So, the kids who came straight to the house gave him a little extra visiting time with them.
But even though they are not little kids anymore, some of them still have fun hunting Easter eggs in grandma’s front yard. Sometimes it’s fun to act like a kid even when you are over six feet tall or in college. And all the time, it’s fun for this grandmother to see her grandkids having fun.
Do you have fun traditions you share on Easter or have shared on Easter in the past with your family?
Comments 1
One time I remember my mom hiding jellybeans in the house for me to hunt for. We kept finding those jellybeans months after Easter was over. It was a lot of fun.