LJ Idol Survivor: Final Immunity Challenge, Day 14

[flipflop_diva]

In terms of holidays we celebrated, Easter was always somewhere near the bottom of the ranking scale when I was growing up.

Christmas, not surprisingly, was the best holiday. My mom would pull out all the decorations as soon as Thanksgiving had passed, and my sister and I would hound our dad — pleading and bartering and bribing with cookies — until he would reluctantly get out the ladder and the boxes and boxes of Christmas lights and string them all over the outside of the house and the trees and the bushes. Every year, he complained about “the things I do for you girls” but every year he would spend six or seven hours making sure everything was perfect.

The weekend after the initial decorating, my mom, my sister and I would load into her car and my dad would take his pickup truck, and we’d head off to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. This usually involved at least an hour of walking around and examining every tree in the place before we decided on the perfect one.

And, of course, after that adventure came decorating the tree, making Christmas cookies, going shopping, wrapping presents and taking car rides to look at other people’s lights. And that was all before Christmas Day even arrived!

Fourth of July was probably the holiday we looked forward to second most, mostly because we always got to spend it with four other families. Our parents had been friends before any of the kids were born, and we had essentially grow up together.

When we were little, Fourth of July meant early morning donuts, sitting in the back of my dad’s old MG and throwing (and eating) candy during the community parade, swimming during the afternoon and waving sparklers and watching fireworks at night.

When we were older, it was a long weekend spent up at my parent’s cabin the mountains, culminating in watching the fireworks show over the lake while we munched on cookies and brownies and packs of M&Ms.

After Fourth of July on our list of beloved holidays came Thanksgiving, mostly because our parents would take us to Disneyland on Thanksgiving Day and then we’d eat all the food on Friday.

Halloween, of course, was up there, too, just for the amount of candy we could collect. And picking out and putting on costumes was always fun too.

Easter, though, was never that exciting. Spring break from school was exciting, but spring break in California never seemed to actually be when Easter was.

We did get new Easter dresses most years and stood outside on the lawn while my dad took hundreds of photos of us, like we were models. And we did get Easter baskets with jelly beans and Cadbury eggs and M&Ms. So it wasn’t without excitement; it just wasn’t the best.

Dying Easter eggs was fun, though. Usually the day before Easter, my mom would set up a row of cups filled with dyes in different colors and give my sister and me about twelve eggs each. We spent hours properly coloring our eggs to the colors and designs we envisioned in our minds, and then added stickers or drawings on top of them.

We’d wait for our eggs to dry and stack them in our little baskets and stare at them for a couple days, until my mom peeled them all and made us egg salad sandwiches for lunch during the week.

One year, we decided we really wanted to do an egg hunt, so we asked my dad if he could hide all the eggs for us Easter morning, and then we could go search for them. My dad agreed, so Easter morning, we waited at the top of the staircase for my dad to hide the eggs all over the house. We felt like we were waiting an eternity, but we knew it would be worth it.

Finally, my dad called us down and told us everything was ready.

He made us stand side-by-side at the bottom of the stairs as he counted down.

“Three! … Two! … One! … Go!”

I went left into the formal living room. My sister went right into the family room. I looked everywhere — under furniture, between the couch cushions, beneath the tablecloths on the little tables beside the couches, even going so far as to lie down on the floor and peer up into the fireplace.

Nothing. Absolutely zero hidden Easter eggs.

My sister had no luck in the family room either.

“Are you sure you hid them?” I asked my dad. He beamed, like he had done the world’s best egg hiding job ever.

We frowned at him, but we weren’t ready to give up.

The door to the closet under the staircase caught my eye. I opened it.

“Dad!!!”

Sitting right there, on top of some boxes full of Christmas decorations, was our Easter baskets and all the eggs, not a single one of them out of place.

“You were supposed to hide them!” my sister said as soon as she saw them.

“I did,” my dad laughed.

“One at a time!” I said.

He laughed more. “You should have been more specific.”

Needless to say, we never had an egg hunt again.

Not until last year, when Ellie was one. David and I bought a bunch of colored plastic eggs and put one M&M inside each one and then laid them all over the backyard. Ellie held my hand, still a little unsteady on her feet after only walking for a couple of months, and we went to the eggs one by one, showing her how to pick them up and put them in her little basket I held for her.

Then we showed her how to open them to reveal the M&M.

This year, we’re going to do another egg hunt. We’re also going to dye Easter eggs and give her an Easter basket of goodies. Then we’ll have a nice meal and let her play with her toys.

Easter will probably never be my favorite holiday, but it’s nice to be able to see it through Ellie’s eyes and to do fun things with her and give her memories that she hopefully will one day pass down to her children.





Non-fiction. Happy Easter to all who celebrate!




Thank you for reading! This was written for therealljidol: Survivor Idol! We're at the final immunity challenge now, so there's no voting. We just write an entry every day until only one person is left standing.

That said, if you want to read the entries, you can find them all here.

Comments

[brkfastatholly.livejournal.com]

Aww this is sweet and I am cracking up so much at your dad hiding eggs. Gee thanks, Dad! :D

[murielle]

I love your dad's sense of humor! <3

[halfshellvenus]

Hahahaha-- your dad's idea of an egg hunt was just sad!

Here's something you might want to try with Ellie. I'm pretty sure my mother was who came up with it.

When I was really little, like 2 or 3, she hid my Easter basket, and she posted the clues using pictures cut out from newspaper/magazine ads. So, it would start with something like a picture of a vacuum cleaner. And I would go to the vacuum cleaner, and there would be another picture taped to it, like a picture of an oven, and then another picture taped to the oven, and so on. The basket was in the clothes dryer, ultimately.

But it's a great idea for a treasure hunt for kids who don't read yet. :D