We hosted Easter again this year, and it has become one of my favorite days of the year. Everyone comes, so we have a crowd of more than 30 people. We’ve found spaces to seat 28 at tables, and a couple on couches round things out. By the time Steve and I sat down to dinner, a few of the kids were finished, so we could have their seats.
At first a “formal” dinner for 30 seemed unreasonable to me, but now I actually enjoy it! Bringing in the tables, clearing the rooms and hauling out not just the china but every plate right down to the melamine summer plates from Target.
Everyone brings something, so the cooking is far from burdensome. I make the ham, and learned last year that the secret to great ham is to boil the hell out of it before baking. This year I made two, so there were leftovers. I glazed it with orange marmalade and cloves.
Putting the cloves into the ham, I was struck by their Easter significance. They look so much like thorns. We had no sacrificial lamb, but pressing the cloves into the flesh of the ham made me conscious of the crucifixion.
The next thing I did was go out and scatter the plastic eggs filled with candy. Our prairie is now intersected with marvelous fescue paths that were green in the midst of dry grasses. After putting the eggs in all the obvious places, I walked along a path and placed eggs at intervals. I figured once the bigger kids had scoured the bulk of the eggs, I could take the younger ones down the path. That is what happened, as I accompanied our nephew James (4) and watched his excitement as he discovered yet another egg. His brother and sister, Ryan and Beth, could not be held back, but they had strict instructions only to take every third egg. Seeing them run ahead, squealing with competitive excitement (they are both 6), was also glorious. It was Resurrection, the discovery anew of what we were expecting and experience each year.
(Oh, I guess we did have a sacrificial lamb, after all. Made by the Schoenstatt Sisters in Sleepy Eye and brought each year by my mother-in-law, who celebrated her 80th birthday on Easter Sunday.)
