Easter 2020, quarantine-style

As we sat down to Easter dinner today, we remarked on how it's the first major holiday our family has ever spent "alone." I always felt some sympathy for others who didn't have family nearby on holidays, and although it wasn't what we would have chosen, we found it to be quite lovely. It was an all-day affair.

At our house, we leave our decorated eggs and filled baskets on the counter at night and the sneaky trickster Easter bunny comes and hides them. The kids found the eggs, then their baskets. Toys and candy were harder to come by this year, but they were happy with their little gifts, spending the next couple of hours running around the yard with mini-kites, digging in the garden, and building with Legos.

After getting dressed up in some version of our Easter best, we had our little home church service. We prepared a ham that would have fed our extended family and then some (we need to learn to pare down holiday meals when it's "just" us). We managed cheesy potatoes without frozen potatoes and hot fruit salad without the cherries. (We also learned how to dye eggs this week without a kit, and they turned out great!) We realized we didn't have any rolls or bread, but I survived. We broke out the china dishes and didn't break any.

This was actually pre-Easter--dying eggs. That night, Mary's prayer included, "We dyed eggs today, and it was SO fun."

Great-Grandee's deviled eggs

As soon as we finished eating, it was time to Zoom with the Ward-Wernet family, then sneak in an egg hunt before it rained. Kevin stuffed eggs with jelly beans and whatever was in his change basket. So the kids each got a bag full of jelly beans, a dollar and change, and a variety of random objects like safety pins, buttons, and parking tokens. This is always the kids' favorite part. Once the hunt was over, they re-hid them for each other and Nellie made up a scavenger hunt while I cleaned up the kitchen. Which was just fine with me...it was quite peaceful.

We wrapped up our day with a parents-only long walk, getting ready to get back to remote learning, and another Star Wars movie night.

It was easy to focus on what we missed this week--school Easter parties, family gatherings, going to church, and eggs hunts with cousins. But it was a memorable day filled with fun, worship, and reflection.