Boomers remember Easter Sunday as one of the special days of the year, ranking right up there with Christmas, Thanksgiving and your birthday.
Today, not so much.
On Easters past, nearly everyone went to church, dressed to the nines in their Sunday best. The girls wore new Easter dresses with crispy crinolines, the boys sported new suits and ties (clip-on, of course) and all the moms wore hats, white gloves and orchids pinned to their dresses. Dads wore their best suits, and sometimes broke out a new necktie.
Kids woke early on Easter Sunday, searching high and low for hidden Easter baskets stuffed with chocolate bunnies and those little, yellow marshmallow candy chickens that no one would eat. Still, they were colorful, and along with assorted jelly beans, a candy bar or two, and some recently dyed eggs, it made for a nice haul.
I remember eating the dyed, hard-boiled eggs for up to week after Easter, often packed with my school lunch and rarely refrigerated. They were great with lots of salt and pepper, even though the dye sometimes bled through a little.
Another old tradition enjoyed by Boomer kids was the Easter gift of baby chicks and rabbits. Both were dyed in pastel colors. They were cute as buttons and the children enjoyed playing with them – for maybe 30 minutes. Then it was, “What do we do with these things next?”
Today, PETA would have a fit.
I remember once getting a dyed duckling for Easter. The thing was pale blue and it smelled funny. Sorta’ like a duck. One day, we let it loose in the house and could never find it again. I looked beneath every bed and piece of furniture, but no sign of a blue duck. Mother sniffed all around the house for several days after, fearing the tell-take odor of a rotting bird, but nothing. It must have sneaked out the back door.
Boomers also recall Easter Sunday as a festival of food – one of the biggest spreads of the year. We often had leg of lamb, sometimes a big ham, but it was a major feast with lots of veggies, freshly baked rolls and sumptuous desserts.
If the weather was nice, we often went fishing on Easter afternoon to kick off the spring season. That was icing on the Easter cake.
Easter Sunday. Well do Boomers remember that day.