Saturday, April 19, 2014

Happy Resurrection Day!

Today we celebrate with great joy the sacrifice that we grieved for on Friday, for Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, just as He said he would.  When He conquered death, He gave us that gift, if only we accept the salvation and forgiveness of our sins that He sacrificed himself to provide for us.

I love Easter services, not the least for the wonderful music that I have heard and performed over the years. Large and small choirs, sunrise service at various Forest Lawns, services with my church family--it's all good.  Best of all is singing the Hallelujah Chorus.  God must have shown Handel a glimpse of His Glory to inspire such wonderful music.  In recent years worship teams have taken over from choirs, with much uplifting contemporary music, but I'll always be partial to traditional music.  We are also blessed that our church livestreams its services (www.ccvsocal.com for those who are interested), as Mom is not able to get out as much as she used to.

Mom remembers family Easter celebrations as she grew up in the Depression and World War 2. Her mom loved holidays, especially Christmas and Easter. Mom and her siblings would wake on Easter mornings to an egg hunt in the house--hidden by the Easter Bunny of course--the colorful hard candy shells with soft white sugary interiors were fun to find and eat. Dinner was at Grandma Swiney's house until she moved to California in 1942, and Mom's family moved from Webb City to Alba the following year. By then, the egg hunts were in the big yard, using dyed eggs.

When I was a kid we dyed eggs and used them for our egg hunts outside--some got eaten before dinner and some were eaten at dinner.  We had Easter baskets with chocolate eggs and bunnies, jelly beans, marshmallow eggs, and sometimes those hardshelled candy eggs like the ones Mom enjoyed so much as a child. Later years saw the addition of Sees candy eggs and Peeps, then the big American candy makers got into the act with Easterized versions of their traditional chocolate bars--i.e Snickers eggs, Reeses bunnies, and a multitude of chocolates in a variety of shapes.

Today I will do the ham and Mom will do the pea salad.  After church, we will be at home for the family.  Everyone is bringing something, so we will eat well, I'm sure. Then there is all that candy.  No calories there.

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