TWO HOLIDAYS, TOO CLOSE TOGETHER

I'm a bit befuddled by the closeness of St. Patrick's Day and Easter this year. St. Patrick's Day is staying where it should be, but Easter is extra-early this year. I read that the 22nd of March is the earliest possible day for Easter to be celebrated. It will be 280 something years before that will happen again. Easter is the 23rd this year. That's just too darn early. I have my fingers crossed that it won't be a cold, windy day. You never know about March. April is a much better month for Easter. For one thing, there is no green grass to be seen here in Eureka Springs. How in the world will the Chamber of Commerce hold their annual Easter Egg Hunt? The forsythias are lagging behind this year too. I've seen scraggly blooms here and there around town, but usually they are showing in glorious profusion by St. Patrick's Day. Not so this year.



Don and I thought we'd have a hum-drum Easter this year, but our spirits perked up when I received an e-mail from Jason this morning. He and Erin will drive up from Memphis to spend the weekend with us. Yippee! Now, I have planning to do. We will cook out on the grill Easter Sunday. I will probably make the Easter Bunny cake like my grandmother Baldridge always did. The last time I made one was in 2006. (See photo below.) I might even throw some Easter baskets together with the usual junk candy....jelly beans, chocolate eggs, Peeps, etc. I haven't done that in a long time, and the sugar won't kill us if we only eat it for a few days.

I bought Easter bunny ears at Wal-Mart to take a silly photo to e-mail to all our family and friends. I'll add it to this blog when I get that done. We'll look goofy, but so what? We're old; we can act as goofy as we like.


I think I can probably talk Jason and Erin into dyeing eggs Saturday night if they're not too tired from the drive. If they are, that's fine. I can do it alone. I'm looking for some sort of special way to dye them; something different from the usual food color dyes, but if I can't find anything, the old-fashioned way will do. At least it's traditional.



Speaking of Easter egg hunts: I miss not having any little ones around for that. When we move to Memphis, there are 4 darling little children that I think will allow me to join in their festivities. I'm looking forward to that.


I remember Easters of long ago. We always had to have a new Easter outfit. It would have been embarrassing, almost scandalous, not to have new clothes to wear to church. That new outfit included gloves and a hat. No decent woman attended church without both. Lots of women wore corsages for Easter. Do women still wear corsages to church? We always bought them for our mothers and grandmothers on Easter and Mother's Day.



St. Patrick's Day has always been a favorite holiday of mine. Maybe it's because green is one of my three favorite colors. Green is a good color to see as Winter drags its old depressing self off the calendar. Shamrocks, leprechauns, lilting brogues......I like them all. It's almost here again. Don't forget to wear something green tomorrow, or you'll get pinched. If you want to get pinched, forget what I said.



Happy St. Patrick's Day and have a wonderful Easter!