Category: Easter

Easter, holiday

This just in: Hoppy Easter from the Easter Dachshund

Christa Avampato

Hoppy Easter from the Easter Dachshund!

Hoppy Easter from the Easter Dachshund
Hoppy Easter from the Easter Dachshund
animals, Easter

Beautiful: Happy Easter from the Easter Dachshund

Christa Avampato

You’ve heard of the Easter Beagle? You’ve heard of an Easter Egg Roll? Around this house, we get an annual visit from the rolly polly Easter Dachshund. Happy Easter and Happy Spring from our pack to yours!

creativity, Easter, family, food

Leap: Easter Memories Around My Grandmother’s Dinner Table

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest member http://pinterest.com/katmckinnon/

When I was little, Easter was my favorite holiday. When I think of the happiest days of my childhood, they all revolve around that Easter dinner table at my grandmother’s house. I wish I had told my grandmother how much those days meant to me then and now I wish I had the chance to tell her that they mean even more to me now.

Easter was a special time in that home. The Sharon Rose bush outside would be in full bloom in the front yard. As we pulled into the driveway, my grandmother would be at the door waiting for us to arrive. We were the very best part of her life and she made sure we knew it every second that she was around us.

The kitchen was the first room we entered in her home and there was always a glorious, welcoming scent coming from the oven. On Easter, it was lamb – a dish I never had anywhere else and not at any time of year.It would be accompanied by potatoes, glazed carrots, and buttered peas. Everyone got their own individual salad in their own individual bowl which I always got such a kick out of. And then there would be the black olive game. My grandfather and I would put the black olives in our finger tips – the olives too big for my fingers and too small for his – and then we would wave at each other.

Once the dishes had been cleared and washed, my favorite part of the meal would start. My grandmother would make her way over to the fridge and use the step stool to grab a large, round Tupperware container. Inside would be her special cake that I always thought she made just for me. It was incredibly simple – a yellow cake made from a Duncan Hines mix topped with sliced cinnamon apples. It’s still my very favorite food in the world and I’ve never been able to re-create exactly as she made it. There was something special about that cake; I think it was all the love she put into it.

The coffee would start brewing, the walnuts and the nut cracker would come out, and then the stories would start spilling from everyone. Most of them were about people whom I’d never met, relatives who had passed on long before I was born, but through all of those stories I came to know them and love them as much as I loved all of the people around that table. I’d grab another slice of cake and hope that somehow that dinner could go on forever.

But of course, it couldn’t. It was only a snapshot in time; a day that would come and go like every other day. Long after the sun went down, we’d pile back into the car with leftovers in tow, and make the long drive back to our house. My grandmother would be at the door, waving good-bye and staring out into the darkness long after our car was out of view.

Though today I’m spending Easter in a much different way than I did all those years ago, my mind is traveling back in time to that table surrounded by those people. I’m so grateful that for a little while we all had the chance to be together.

Easter, holiday, hope

Beginning: Easter for All of Us

Christa Avampato

When I was a child, Easter was my favorite holiday. I would get more excited for Easter than I would for Christmas. I got wear a pretty dress and pretty shoes. We’d pack into the car and be to my grandmother’s house in Connecticut by noon. Some of my relatives would meet us there. We’d have a meal and then could dive into our over-sized Easter baskets made up for each of us by my Grammy.

I remember Easter as a time when the flowers were out, the grass was green, and the promise of summer was nearby. Though at the time I didn’t truly understand the religious significance of Easter, I certainly understood the energetic significance. For me, as for so many, it was a time of healing. A time when we could equally hold great sorrow and much rejoicing. We could look disappointment in the eye knowing that there was a promise of redemption and rebirth not too far behind. Easter taught me that for everything there is a season.

Though I no longer formally celebrate Easter, I always keep its lessons close to my heart. No matter where we are, no matter what’s happening to us, there is always a hope that tomorrow will shine brighter than today. That’s the promise of Easter, no matter what religion we place our faith in. Happy Easter to all!

Easter, holiday, religion, Spring

Step 94: Easter

Christa Avampato

Easter Sunday – this was always my favorite holiday when I was a kid. We would all pack up and go to my Grammy’s house. We’d eat a delicious meal, followed by lots of candy. We’d hang out and the flowers would be blooming as everyone smiled in their very best Sunday clothes. Every Easter I spend some time remembering those times, missing them, and so grateful that we had that time together.

Because of all of my yoga training this weekend I didn’t go home for Easter this year. This morning I got an e-card from my mom that concluded with “Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Happy Everything.” All religious affiliations aside, that’s how I think of Easter. A time to wish everyone ‘happy everything’. (And I have to say I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the incredible e-cards I’ve been getting lately. They are elaborate and stunning. I’d like to keep them in an on-line library of some kind! Check out Blue Mountain cards and Jacquie Lawson.)

I also received a message from my friend, Moya, about her upcoming trip to DC. She wished me a Happy Easter along with this message, “I like the idea of sacrifice and of enduring and being rewarded in the end.” I’m with Moya and her beautiful sentiment. Everyday we make sacrifices for the sake of the long-haul. We hope all of our hard work and effort pay off in the long-run even when that hope seems foolish in the short-run. Easter reminds us that persevering in the face of difficulty, keeping the faith when we have no practical reason to do so, and continuing to show up with the very best we have to offer today despite the troubles we faced yesterday and will likely face tomorrow, has a magic, a power that just cannot be explained rationally. It’s just pure faith.

I love Easter and Spring because they show us that our future, our own re-birth, is in our hands AND helped along by a mystical, beautiful, universal energy. Whether you celebrate Easter as a religious holiday or not, I hope that this sense of possibility and the beauty of burgeoning life after a very long winter is yours today and every day going forward. Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Happy Everything.

The image above is not my own. I can be found here.

Easter, family, holiday, mother, religion, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – A Little Bit of the Divine

Christa Avampato

This morning I was on the Metro-North train to visit my family for Easter. Two little boys, twins, got on the train with their mom, who looked exhausted and worn out, with a couple of new toys. Another woman walked by – she was one of those classic old New York women who you know from her tone of voice have lived in this big city for the better part of their lives. I am sure she talks to everyone she meets as if she’s known them forever, and given all she’s lived through, she’s entitled to state any and all of her opinions as fact. These women also exactly what to say and when to say – their timing and level of appropriateness is impeccable.

“Where’d you get those toys?” she asked the two children. “Mom or the Easter Bunny?”

“The Easter Bunny.”

“Huh. You know Moms are much better than the Easter Bunny. You can’t trust a rabbit but you can always trust you mother.”

The mother smiled, grateful and confused. The boys looked at her with surprise.

“What if I know the rabbit?” one of the boys asked.

“And if I can’t trust a rabbit, can I trust my cat?” the other boy asked.

“Well cats are tricky, too. Even mine. And I guess you can trust a rabbit if you know him, but my money’s on your mother.”

And with that very simple statement, she was gone. When I overhear conversations like this, I sometimes wonder if I’m witnessing a divine moment. Maybe that woman is some angel who showed up right when this mother needed her most. It’s possible that I watched too many episodes of Touched by an Angel with my own mom when I was little. It’s also possible that I so much want to believe in the divine in some form that I’m willing to tell myself these elaborate stories as if they are proof.

Springtime does this to us. I’m having a hard time remembering the last winter that lasted this long and seemed this cold and unrelenting. And I like cold weather and snow, thick sweaters and boots. But this Easter, I’m really ready to wish it a fond farewell, hoping it doesn’t rear its head until December.

I’m ready to see some new life sprout up from the Earth. I’m ready for New York to transform itself with flowering trees and sidewalk cafes. I’m ready for a little bit of the divine, or even seemingly divine, to touch our lives again and bring us some hope that we are moving forward and evolving, and the most powerful vehicle for that kind of message is in watching nature take on different hues and textures. I’d like to see all this hard work we’ve been doing during this cold winter come to fruition through a rebirth of heart and mind and spirit.