top 5 Easter rituals

There are many rituals we've adopted over the years to celebrate Easter. Here are the top 5:

* Easter egg dying (no-brainer). When we were in France 2 years ago, I couldn't find white eggs, but I really loved the tones of the dyed brown eggs. 

* Easter baskets. I'm a bit nervous this year because my 5 year old has decided to pray to the Easter bunny to ask for something in particular for Easter. She devised this plan to see whether there really is an Easter bunny, or whether it's the parents. I have no idea what she has prayed for, so this Easter might be her revelation day. We'll see. If she prayed for a Kinder surprise chocolate egg, I've got that covered. 

* making egg cheese. This is from my Swiss Mennonite tradition. Some people call it "Easter cheese." It's mostly just a carrier for fresh maple syrup - it's a little bland all by itself. But I love it. My grandma used to make it, and she taught me how. Now I'm the family egg cheese maker. Watching the curds magically separate from the whey is mesmerizing. I look forward to making it every year.

* celebrating a seder meal. We've been having this meal on the Thursday before Good Friday as a way of remembering what Jesus was experiencing with his disciples. For us, it gives more meaning to the Easter story of death and resurrection. Our daughters look forward to it, and ask each year who we're celebrating with this year. Each year it's been different and special - a celebration of our hope and freedom, and a reminder that not all in our world are free. I love how the kids ask questions to frame the storytelling around the table, and the symbolism in the foods. 

* baking paska bread. This comes from my husband's Russian Mennonite background. The recipe makes a huge batch of bread, and it's fun to make little loaves and share them around with teachers, family, friends. It's a long process with three risings of the dough. I always end up singing "We Rise Again" by the Rankin Family while I'm making paska. And the three risings remind me of 3 sad days. And the yeast makes me think that many miracles are possible, even a resurrection. The smell of the bread dough rising and that yeast doing its silent work makes me put aside my skeptical reasoning brain for yet another Easter, ready to embrace what I cannot imagine. Ready to trust in a magic that I cannot see. Hopeful that a resurrection is possible once again.

the little loaves rising

mixing the dough

kneading

icing and sprinkles

What are your rituals at this time of year?

Advent calendar crazy

I think I have always loved Advent calendars - as a kid, as a youth, as an adult, and as a parent. And not just the chocolate variety. I love ones that have little messages - tasks or things to think about each day. And the playmobil ones - they're fun too.

Last week I made a calendar at my crafty friend's place. She hosted an Advent calendar evening with a bunch of friends. Here's the final product:

About 12 years ago - before kids - Derek and I made a calendar for my family members that had different activities for the "12 days of Christmas." It started on the 10th of December and went til the 25th, so I don't quite get why it was called "12 days." Oh well. We also made a tape (yes - a cassette tape) to go along with the calendar with some of our favourite Christmas tunes for family to listen to on certain days. It was very simple and fun. This was the inside/bottom of the calendar (there was another paper over top that had flaps on it to open each day):

I also saw an idea where you can use all of your single socks strung on a line with little notes or ornaments inside each day - 24 for the days leading up to Christmas. Luckily, I happen to have 24 lonely socks in the house just waiting for a special job like this:

I also thought of using those clips above (bought at IKEA years ago) to spell out a Christmas message - adding one letter for each day from Dec. 1st to 25th. Here's what I've come up with:

Hope, Joy, Peace, Love, Christmas [that's 25 letters!]

We've used this Advent calendar below (purchased at Ten Thousand Villages) for the past few years. Each day, there's a note inside the pocket. Three years ago, Zoe was convinced that it was God writing the notes. So sometimes they said, "Be nice to your parents today." or "Don't pick your nose anymore." 2 years ago, she thought it was Santa. Some mornings Santa would forget to put a note there, and he'd magically make one appear in the afternoon or even during supper. Last year, Zoe was convinced that she recognized our handwriting.

I like to be intentional about infusing this month with good things - something little each day - thoughts, prayers, activities that focus on the spirit of giving and what matters. It's easy to get caught up in the busyness of the season and not leave time for reflection or quiet or real meaning. For me, this time of year is all about family traditions - making memories together.

It's also about noticing small miracles and glimpses of God (are you seeing them too?). In her sermon on Sunday, my friend talked about trying to resist the urge to fill up her Advent calendar with lots of activities that will fill up time and space, leaving no room for surprises or God. I'd like to have both - meaningful activity and restful space to imagine, breathe, and take in the joy of the season.

If you're wanting to craft your own calendar this year, here are some ideas to draw from:

* Be a secret Santa or angel to someone today. Do a kind deed.
* Surprise a friend with a "just thinking of you" phone call.
* Make and drink homemade Bailey's.
* Listen to the Elvis Christmas album.
* Sing your favourite Christmas carol.
* Go for a walk with a loved one.
* Look at the lights around town.
* Write yourself a letter about what this year has meant to you.
* Read your favourite Christmas story.
* Pray for situations that seem hopeless.
* Tell of a time when you felt love.
* Talk about glimpses of God.
* Tell others at your supper table what they do to bring you joy.
* Light a candle. Pray a prayer of hope.
* Make a decoration for the Christmas tree.
* Write a Christmas card to someone far away.
* Host strangers.
* Go carolling.
* Make a Christmas show for friends or family.
* Bake some Christmas treats.
* Wrap a gift to donate to a children's hospital or agency that collects toys.
* Camp out in the basement.
* Write about your wishes for the world.
* Watch a favourite Christmas movie.
* Choose some favourite foods to give to the food bank.
* Clean and decorate your bedroom.
* Be impregnated by God's spirit (that was Derek's idea).

gathered 'round the food

Some of my favourite meals are ones that take place AROUND something. Like a campfire. Everyone prepares and cooks their own hotdogs, marshmallows, or tin foil dinners. Nothing like fire-cooked food on a warm summer day to make you feel content and ready for a long night of sleeping on the ground.

Other fun family foods have been fondue, raclette, crepes, and hot pot. Meals where we are sharing and preparing a meal around the table. We love how participatory they are, and how the meal can last for hours. Everyone gets their hands in there, and chooses items that they want to eat. We've enjoyed our raclette grill ever since receiving it as a wedding gift - yummy stinky cheese melted and scraped over boiled potatoes and grilled vegetables.

And I love its history - that cow herders would go up into the Swiss mountains with a block of cheese and a sack of potatoes. They would boil their potatoes over a fire, and scrape melted cheese on top. Yum.

Here's one of our favourite raclette recipes to try on a raclette grill (it's a mix of Mexico and Switzerland):

1 avocado, diced
1 tsp garlic, crushed
2 T lime juice
2 T fresh coriander, chopped
1/2 lb (250 g) cooked shrimp, peeled and de-veined
raclette cheese, thinly sliced


Toss first 4 ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Grill shrimp in raclette trays. Top with avocado mixture and cheese. Broil until cheese has melted and shrimp are warm (about 5 minutes). Eat!

The idea of crepes as a social-type meal was a new one to us - at a friend's house in France, we made our own mini-crepes on a grill that had 6 little circular sections. We could add our own meat and cheese to make a savoury version, or just have sweet ones with jam, sugar, and Nutella.

Here is a shot from our Christmas hot pot experience at a restaurant in Markham:

around a Christmas hot pot

We were at a friend's birthday party the other night where her Spanish husband cooked up paella for the crowd. So yummy, and interesting to see how it was cooked up on a specially made paella gas burner outside. And I love the history of it: that it was traditionally made by workers in the fields, using whatever ingredients were available. The "bomba" rice is put into the pan in the shape of a cross, even by those who wouldn't consider themselves religious. It's a real social affair - right from the cooking to the eating.

These are my comfort foods - the meals that last forever, with the talking, laughing, and sharing that happens. And my kids? These are the meals they beg for - the special ones where guests are at the table, creating a meal and experience together.

In France, we started a fun tradition called "first week fondue" - a fondue to celebrate the end of the first week of school. We partake in both cheese and chocolate and are fully stuffed by the end. We roll up the stairs to bed, which is a hard thing to do.

around a cheese fondue

Here's our favourite chocolate fondue recipe:

1 really large quality Swiss chocolate bar (dark or milk chocolate)
a bit of milk

For some extra kick, try:

• a pinch of cayenne pepper
• a tsp ground allspice
• a tsp cinnamon
• 2-3 T dark rum or Grand Marnier
• whipping cream instead of milk

Break up the chocolate bar into smaller chunks. Slowly melt (on low) in a pot on the stove or in the microwave. Add a bit of milk (2 Tablespoons). Whisk it into the melted chocolate. Add a bit more milk if you want to thin out the chocolate a bit more. Eat with: strawberries, bananas, apples, kiwi, mangoes, star fruit, lychees, pineapples, blackberries, chunks of pound cake, pretzels, etc.

family rituals: the eggs

In France last Easter, I looked desperately for white eggs, but everywhere they looked at me curiously. Pour colorier, I said.  In Migros grocery store a helpful woman understood, led me to the children's Easter crafts and proudly handed me white plastic eggs. I smiled in thanks, still smiling as I went to the egg aisle, picked up a carton of the brown ones, and headed home.

I don't know why I fretted over this. My grandma always used brown ones, and I thought they were so beautiful. Brown eggs wrapped in onion skins, boiled to dye. Gorgeous orangey-brown hues, perfect orbs holding great mystery.

And here were our French Easter eggs:

not too bad, eh?

I almost prefer these shades to the ones on our white eggs. This year, we had a dying-good-time with my sister and her little girl. Busy hands (and tiny feet!) at the table:

and the Easter egg dyed sky as we finished our eggs:

family rituals: seder supper

Last Thursday we celebrated a Seder supper with friends. Children and adults, joined around the table to hear stories of slavery and freedom and hope for the future.

And one of the youngest ones asks in Hebrew, "How is this night different from all other nights?"

It's a shared storytelling, with children asking questions and adults trying their best to answer. And the foods - symbolic tastes of hardship in the form of bitter horseradish, salty water like tears, and flat matza bread given no time to rise.

This is our 5th year celebrating this meal, and each year has been different and meaningful in its own way. Last year we celebrated a bilingual Seder in France. This is a tradition that has been held and encouraged by our children. After experiencing it once, our oldest daughter asked the next year, "Who will we celebrate the Seder with this year?"

We celebrate layers of story. Each year there are different freedoms on our minds. Each year people who are oppressed, not yet free. Each year the same story, but different. Remembering deliverance from oppression, remembering this meal that Jesus shared with his close friends, and remembering our hope for a new day when all will be free.

family rituals: egg cheese

My grandma taught me how to make egg cheese. I've made it almost every Easter since she died. It's one of my little silent promises to her that I'll keep some of her recipes alive, and pass them on to my own children.

The recipe is from my Swiss Mennonite tradition and it's made from 8 cups whole milk, 1 cup buttermilk, 1 tsp salt, and 6 eggs. Rich. I say a little prayer each time I make this recipe, hoping it will turn out and I will not burn the milk by stepping away and becoming distracted. I plant my feet in front of the stove and vow not to move. I'd rather not make a late-night grocery run for more whole milk.

It's a slow recipe. Lots of watching and waiting and slowly stirring from one side of the pot to the other. Then waiting some more. When the curds finally separate from the whey, I always count it a small miracle.

I can't resist trying just a small bowl with fresh maple syrup.

It's wrapped in cheesecloth and left to drip in the fridge overnight. On Easter morning, I peel back these white cloths and it reminds me of other white cloths empty of a body lying in an open tomb. A miracle.

Making these Easter foods over the past days has made me mindful of small miracles.

The miracle of:

• curds separating from whey,
• yeast rising into sweet bread,
• clear sap transformed to sweet golden syrup,
• white eggs becoming a rainbow,
• the sky with its setting sun its own dyed-egg-beauty.

If I can believe in these small miracles, could my mind be open to bigger ones?

Seed to plant
acorn to oak
all of these are small miracles
slow miracles
that take time,
inspire wonder
as I slow myself
to watch them unfold
and behold!!!

family rituals

I am the carrier of tradition and ritual in our little family. And I love it - this passing on from generation to generation, seeds of mystery and possibility and meaning and hope. Things that anchor us to our yearly cycles. That tie us to the seasons, and to the depth of ancient religious festivals. I love this.

I've found that our kids can create traditions as well, or remind us of something done once with the expectation for repetition, year after year. Like our seder supper.

I watch their excitement as I bring out seasonal boxes - some kitsch, some beauty, all reminders of this season. They love to help decorate, to make a space for this special time.

I often think about the high holiday rituals we celebrate around Christmas and Easter, and how to make those seasons meaningful outside of the consumerist bent. Both of these celebrations were ones I grew up with and have found memories of our family times together.

We also had a meaningful winter solstice last year, and the seder meal has become an important part of our Easter celebrations. For Thanksgiving we've celebrated the Feast of Booths for the past 2 years with our church. I love how the seder and feast of booths include storytelling and symbolic foods as part of the tradition.

I tell myself that these rituals and traditions are for my children, but really they're for me too - to ground me, guide me, give me purpose. I want to feel like I'm passing something on - from my grandparents and my parents to my own children - memories of Easters with paska bread and egg cheese, Christmas feasts with jam-jam and pfeffernusse cookies. Foods that become meaning.

Here's a CBC podcast I enjoyed about family ritual.

What family rituals and traditions are important to you?