Here’s a silly Easter photo from 1973. Maybe I just finished tramping through my mother’s tulips and that accounts for why I look so gleeful! Although it’s probably hard to be anything but merry when you’re not quite 3 and full of candy.
Looking through old photo albums, most Easter photos were posed on this side of the house with a few bedraggled tulips in the background or my brothers and I were posed beneath the blooming crabapple that was on the other side of the house. There’s not much blooming here in NJ now besides daffodils, so I wonder what parents will do in the morning after church for photos.
Growing up, the night before Easter was when we did eggs. I remember my mother had a particular pot she always used to boil eggs in – it had some type of white coating on it – and I remember the house filled with the smell of vinegar. We were always very anxious to get started, but she never was and now that I’ve colored eggs with little kids a few times, I understand her reluctance to have to clean up afterwards. By that time we were bored with eggs and she had the mess to contend with.
The Easter Bunny always brought baskets of candy and hid our colored eggs. There was usually an egg hidden in my slippers and the baskets were usually hidden behind the drapes in the dining room. The rest of the eggs might be hidden anyhere in the house and I wonder how my parents kept track of all of them in case we didn’t find a few. After our Easter egg hunt we got dressed and went to church, came home for photos and then made the long trip to my grandparent’s in North Jersey for dinner with the relatives.
If you click on the little pic at right, you ought to be able to read a letter I wrote to the Easter Bunny when I was nine. My brother Brian found it when we were cleaning out my dad’s house and thought I should save it. I get a laugh from reading my not so subtle suggestions about how much I liked candy on Easter!
Wishing a joyful Easter to all. What will you be doing? Feel like sharing any Easter memories?
Very cute picture and a great story as well.
I am very happy because I get to spend Easter with my son and my cousin Dale. It should be a wonderful day.
I remember when my son was small, he used to love to pre-decorate the Easter eggs with a coloring crayon. It was always so much fun seeing how they turned out after they were dipped.
Laura, this is so great. I had the same routine on the day before Easter and Easter Sunday! Our eggs were planted around the house or outside depending on the weather and we hunted for our baskets in the same places you did. I love that letter, written to Mr. Fluffy Bunny! Even then, you wrote very well :o) Cute picture! Full of sugar, I can tell..
Happy Easter!
We didn’t have easter baskets, but my parents would hide candy eggs or other candies all over the house, just here and there. They would put them sitting on top of lampshades, the back of the sofa, and along the top of the fireplace — hiding places like that. Around 1966, I think we got our first “big” easter present — a big chocolate hen on a nest. The tail had been broken off, so my mom made a new tail out of tin foil (no doubt, my parents probably ate the tail off of it and just said it got broken!).
Love your photo and the details on the olden days! I was never a big Chocolate Bunny person but my parents always took care of me. Happy Easter to you and your familY!
What a cute picture! The “Easter Bunny” usually hid our eggs outside, but the drill was similar to yours. To this day the smell of vinegar makes me think of Paas egg dye and all of us sitting around the dining room table writing and drawing on eggs with crayon and dying them in little glass bowls of all different colors.
Thanks for sparking such lovely memories!
Are the buns excited yet about tomorrow? Tidbit knows it’s her special day. 🙂
Sounds like nice memories-My family was in to easter too.
Have a nice holiday and don’t eat too much candy.
Laura, I forgot to add something very interesting… In the year you wrote that letter to Mr. Fluffy Bunny, I was already married for four years. Now, doesn’ that make you feel young???? LOL!
Great picture. Great memories. We always did the Easter basket thing and I do it for my kids now.
Laura: Did you notice that Mon@rch used the term “olden days”? Shall I beat him up for you?
Let’s see…Easter of 1973…I was about 3 months old then.
Love the letter. Very subtle reference to candy.
🙂
We are going to my Mom’s tomorrow. Usually, we go to Swami and Swamette’s, but they will just be getting back from England tomorrow. (I promised not to say anything…they have been gone for a week and a half)
Laurie: Enjoy the day tomorrow – glad you’ll be spending it with people you love!
Mary: You should see the funny suits and hairdos that my brothers are wearing in the same set of pics! I don’t remember even hunting for eggs outside.
Bev: Thanks for sharing you memories – they made me smile!
Monarch: Yes – hoppy easter to you and yours.
Bunnygirl: The bunnies have been resting up for days in anticipation.
😉
Larry: Thanks – I’m over the candy now – I look forward to homemade mashed potatoes waaay more than I ought to.
Mary: Well… maybe just a little!
Liza: Hope the Easter bunny is good to you all!
Susan: Yes, please do!
😉
I’m thinking *olden days*??? Until I realize it was like 30 years ago!
Have fun tomorrow!
I’ve hunted eggs, inside, outside and in kneedeep snow. The ones we couldn’t find. Turned up after the snow melted.
The pan your mom used was probably an enamel pan. Best for eggs.
YHou are cute at three.
hpw neat to have the letter.
Happy Easter.
I love children for their exuberant joy and enthusiasm. You show this so well in your picture. We decorated eggs and hunted jelly beans in the house. No outdoor eggs hunts today …too much new snow!
Happy Easter.
Ruth
How adorable Laura! Love the letter! I remember coming home from church (always in our new frilly dresses) and finding those huge baskets filled to the brim with all things egg and chocolate too! It was such a great mystery how he got in the house. And I remember wanting to eat those white-turned-green colored eggs (once you peeled them) and hoping they were not too old…lol.
A cutie..but you look so innocent! Hope you get lots of Easter candy. You should – you have enough bunnies around!
Sweet.
Our baskets always held a pineapple, grapes, and a chocolate bunny. I remember storing his gnawed remains in the fridge for days as he slowly transformed from bunny to anonymous lump.
My parents always hid our baskets and we carry on that tradition.
Cute knees. 🙂 Easter 1973 I was in the 11th grade.
Memories that stick out with my kids are them in snowsuits and egg hunting in the snow. Nick would hunt at 60 mph and Ryan and Cassie would take their time.
Lots o’ chocolate, that’s what happened here this Easter. What a cutie!
Hoppy Bunny Day to you!! We hope you received lots of goodies from the Big Bun. Here are special memories:
1) When my Mother would dress my sister and I up in our pretty Easter outfits complete with bonnets
2) When Richie proposed to me Easter morning at Sandbridge Beach in 2003.
=:8
That is so perfect, the story, the memories and the note. Not being very religous Easter is one of my least favorite holidays but I try my hardest to put down some traditions so hopefully my kids will have strong memories just like that.
Awwww–you were so cute. And the letter to Fluffy Bunny–priceless. I especially like your instruction–you can come in the usual way, and hide the eggs.
cutest lil’ thang! I was a sophmore in high school and was babysitting lilttle rug rats like you!
When you wrote your bunny letter, I had been married 5mos….a child bride at 21. Your handwriting is better than a lot of highschoolers in 2007! Sweet,
Oh my gosh, it’s almost exactly like our daughter’s notes to the E.B. now–she always gives him instructions on where the eggs are too! I’m so glad you kept this note–it’s great!
Hoppy Easter!
What a precious post, Laura. The note to the Easter bunny says it all – “I like a lot of candy on Easter.”
Sweet. Sweet.
Great post! I remember finding a chocolate egg from our family egg hunt many months after Easter. Of course, I ate it.
Laura,
That note reminds me of all those times at Easter at home. We had the same Easter baskets, year after year and they were loaded with jelly-beans and large chocolate bunnies. I remember decorating the eggs. Brian always made a brownish-greenish-blueish ugly egg. Always. How did he do that every year ? Must be that “kicker-mickel” thing.
I am glad to see that you managed to save a jewel amongst the piles of things to be cleaned out and disposed of. I tried to keep a few of those things that Mom meticulously put away. Nice glimpse into the simplicity of childhood.