Easter was last Sunday. So I’m a little late to be right on schedule with a blog about Easter traditions.  But I wore a very cute hat to church today (in honor of William and Kate’s Royal Wedding) and got a number of compliments and comments about my Easter bonnet.

So it’s fair to say that Easter is still in the air!

Easter has always been an important holiday, and busy time for us. Especially since John is a pastor and so much of our family life is connected to church activities. John says Easter Sunday is The Superbowl of church services.

It’s probably been 25 years since we had a traditional ham dinner with extended family.  And I don’t think our kids have ever hunted for an Easter egg.

We always wanted them to think about Easter as the day we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and not all about candy and the Easter bunny. But at the same time, we didn’t want to be those sour faced, legalistic Christian parents who put so much emphasis on church and spiritual things that we missed out on making memories and having a bit of fun and silliness.

So even with the marathon busyness of back-to-back services on Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, we figured out how to give candy and bunnies the place they deserve in our Easter festivities.

(Please skip this paragraph if you’re squeamish or a vegetarian) Our “Easter bunny tradition” was that we bought fresh rabbit from the butcher, and ate some variation of what came to be known as barbecued bunny. (Dare I say it tastes a lot like chicken…?) We’ve tried lots of different recipes over the years: roast rabbit, bunny and dumplings, hare hash… Due to time constraints it was usually braised bunny – simmered in the crock pot with lots of spices and potatoes and, of course, carrots.

I don’t think our kids missed out on anything by not believing in an Easter Bunny who came and brought baskets of candy. They got a lot of laugh mileage with the off-beat humor and fun.

And we surely didn’t want them to feel cheated by missing out on getting sick from eating too much candy. So every Monday morning after Easter I gave them each a few dollars and took them to the grocery store where all the Easter candy was discounted. They were able to buy whole bags of whatever candy they liked best – and they learned a lesson in economics into the bargain!

Lots of church services…barbecued bunny and half price candy… hmmm…they may have grown up to be a little warped, but that’s for another blog.