In my earliest clear memory of Easter, I was about five or six, my dress was pale orchid organdy, and I carried a basket almost as large as I. Perhaps this memory remains sharply honed by the Kodak color photo of me standing on the sidewalk in front of my grandmother’s house, so skinny and knobby-kneed that I appear at first glance to be a hungry waif, one of those ‘starving children in Europe’ my grandmother talked about all the time. However, upon closer examination, the black patent Mary Janes, lace-trimmed anklets, organdy dress, and ridiculous matching straw hat with its floppy ribbon, all pointed to a child carefully dressed for Sunday School on Easter Sunday.

Southern wood violets bloomed by the sidewalk, in that narrow grassy strip between the cement and the privet hedge; I don’t see them in the photo but I know they are there in a dense mat of dark green leaves.

My favorite part of Easter was dying the eggs and this Saturday night ritual was on about the same excitement level as trimming the Christmas tree. Coffee cups were lined up on the kitchen table, each containing a Paas tablet. We poured boiling water over the tablets and added a spoonful of vinegar before carefully dipping the boiled eggs and turning them around and around so the colors would be even, using the flimsy wire ‘lifter’ provided in the kit. We oooh’d and aaah’d as the colors developed, some years keeping the delicate pastels and other years preferring deeper, more vivid colors.

By the time I dyed eggs with my children, Paas had come a long way, and we went through a variety of stripes, wax pencils, wraps, decals, swirls, and artsy patterns, and the vinegar was no longer needed. The results didn’t always mirror the images on the box, but no one seemed to notice. As at my own childhood table, there were many ooh’s and aah’s as eggs were lifted from the dye or when an image was identified from a smeared decal.

Years later, I overheard my grown son complain to his girlfriend. “Can you believe we had Easter bowls! Mom gave us baskets when we were little, but when we were teenagers, we got a bowl!” The girlfriend’s eyes widened as she tried to fathom being dealt such a hand. She rolled her eyes in my direction.

Blessed with three teenagers at once, I didn’t want to embarrass kids who were taller than I, playing football, and taking Driver’s Ed. I felt certain that woven baskets smothered in yellow or lavender cellophane wrap and bedecked with pastel ribbons would give cause for “Oh, God, Mom! Hide it before someone comes in!” After all, they were at ‘that’ age. They rolled their eyes, just-ready-to-die from embarrassment over everything their parents did anyway.

And I thought I was doing those kids a favor! Those Easter bowls were born out of respect and consideration and I had prided myself on their invention. On Easter, they found three earthenware bowls lined up on the kitchen counter, each with a smidgen of colorful Easter grass peeking out and overflowing with chocolate bunnies, marshmallow eggs, Cadburys and Peeps. Those bowls, unlike those childish baskets, could be carried to their rooms with a bit of dignity! They were festive but not babyish, certainly nothing to roll the eyes and groan over.

Not once did I hear a complaint from those kids about those bowls, so you can imagine how surprised and crushed I was when, at least ten years later, I heard my son’s complaint that he had received a bowl and not a basket. Ahhhh! The lengths we go to for our children! And they don’t appreciate it!

And now there’s little Amy, a new generation, who has her own slant on Easter. I recall a phone conversation when she was about four and bubbling over with tales of bunny rabbits and candy eggs. When I asked if the Easter Bunny had been to her house, her reply was so enthusiastic that I could almost feel tiny specks of spittle spraying the phone. “Yeth. The Eethter Bunny came to my houth while I was sleeping and brought me a BIG bathket. It had lots of candy in it but Daddy ate all the chocklit ones. Mommy said he always eats all the chocklit. And you know what else we did? We went to the park and Daddy hid my Eethter eggs and I found them back! Then I hid them from Daddy and HE found them back! Daddy missed one.”

And when she’s seventeen, I bet her daddy gives her an Eethter bowl!

Copyright 2005 Patricia Paris

(Patricia Paris is an author and columnist from Chattanooga.
Contact : patriciaparis@gmail.com.
Member: Tennessee Writers Alliance, Int’l Women’s Writing Guild, Tennessee Mountain Writers, Chattanooga Writers Guild)