EASTER

EASTER

At the beginning of Spring when I small, I knew it wouldn't be long until Easter. Our school would close for awhile and usually, the snow would have melted and left us until next winter.
Birds would reappear and some trees and plants would magically transform once again. We could sometimes shed our jackets and make do with just a sweater. The time would change to Daylight Savings time and that meant another hour of daylight to play ball, hopscotch, marbles or swing on our swings outside.

My mother would start planning her Easter music program in early March. She always attended early sunrise services at our Church and at the 11 am service, would present beautiful Easter Cantatta's. It would be a combined choir effort in which the Junior choir, the Senior choir and a special Men's choir would all join voices. People would attend from miles arround and talk about it for weeks afterwards, pleasing my mother immensely.

The day before Easter she would take time to boil some old dark colored clothes and use the colored water to dip hard boiled eggs into. Our eggs were always blue or red. I don't remember getting any candy for Easter and we never had an Easter basket or an easter egg hunt.

But I did get an Easter bonnet one year and almost always received a new dress or a coat. It may not be brand new but if our cousins from Mass. had sent one, having outgrown them, then it was new to me. And we were all so grateful!

What I liked best about Easter in Barrington, Nova Scotia, was our Sunday dinner. We would all change out of our Sunday finest and sit down to a baked ham (Picnic Shoulder, often times from our own pig), mashed potatoes, mashed turnips, real homemade butter, fried eggs, hot cross buns, Mom's bread & butter pickles and beets. Dessert was usually a lemon or apple pie.

We all knew the story of why we celebrated Easter and we talked about it while waiting to go up to bed on Easter night. The beginning of Spring; the Easter music; the family dinner with plates that never matched; Jesus; what more could a little girl ask for?

"Put on your Easter bonnet
With all the frills upon it
You'll be the prettiest lady
In the easter parade."