I was thinking about Easter today. Our family had a tradition that the kids would always get new Easter dresses. (My brother didn't get Easter dresses. He got Easter outfits.) Sometimes our Easter dresses were hand-me-downs, but they were always "new" to us. Here is a family picture of us wearing our Easter duds. (Obviously this was before Brandon and Michelle arrived.)
I'm the skinny one on the left. My now-skinny (gorgeous) sister, Danae, is the chubby one in this photo. Go figure!
Sometimes money was tight, but Dad and Mom always made sure Easter was special because it was when we celebrated our Savior! We always received an Easter basket with candy, and each of us had our own special basket. Mom saved those baskets and re-used them every year. Usually we had a scavenger hunt on Easter morning where we followed clues to find our baskets.We looked forward to that every year!
One year my parents decided to make Easter extra special. They bought us each a hamster. There were three of us kids at that time, so they bought three male hamsters. Two of the hamsters were brown like this.
One was gray like this.
My parents carefully hid the hamsters in their bedroom the week before Easter, trying to keep them a secret until Easter morning. Imagine my parents' surprise when they woke Easter morning to discover the hamster they had temporarily named "Henry" had a nest full of babies! Henry turned out to be Henrietta. My Dad was even more surprised to discover that Henrietta had an appetite for her own babies. (It's awful, but true!) They quickly called the pet store for hamster baby how-to's. I remember hawking those hamster babies for weeks! "Baby hamster! Baby hamster! Get your baby hamster here!"
Jackson is too little to enjoy an Easter basket this year, but in a couple of years he will hunt eggs with great excitement. (I'm not really sure what eggs have to do with Easter, other than to make it more fun and special for kids...) Regardless, Easter is an important time of year for us as Christians. I look forward to sharing Easter with Jackson soon.
Needless to say The Year of the Hamster is definitely my favorite Easter memory. My parents never topped that one... why bother?
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