Reimagining family traditions.

This year, social media, the airwaves, and maybe even the pulpit will be full of everyone’s take on the fact that Easter falls on April Fool’s Day. To celebrate this convergence of celebrations, I took liberty here with puns and extended metaphors to show I don’t take myself too seriously. 

When my five siblings and I were little, our mom made a lamb cake every Easter. We were Catholic, and the symbolism in this tradition is the reference to Jesus as the Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd.

When my parents downsized some years ago, I inherited the lamb cake mold and used it a few times in subsequent years. My 20-something sons liked it, but I wouldn’t say it was a “hit.” A jelly bean-eyed, coconut-furred farm animal nestled in a bed of green coconut “grass”  just doesn’t rank with, say, mountain zip-lining.  (I’ll save that adventure for another blog). But my sons declared it “good” and my heart was as full as a solid cholate bunny.

Since my last lamb cake, most of the four of us–my husband and I and our two sons–are now avoiding sugar, calories, gluten, grains, dairy, and/or meat, depending on the individual. So I’m scratching the whole lamb production this year.

And I won’t waste my money on chocolate bunnies, Cadbury eggs, or jelly beans, either, since they’ll sit untouched until candy corn season. I wouldn’t hear a peep over a plastic-grass-filled Easter basket, or fancy dyed hard-boiled eggs, so why bother? As much as I’m nostalgic for those Kodak moments, I’m not interested in resurrecting anything without some waving of palms or cheering of crowds alongside me. Someday my sons may be ready to carry that cross, but they’re not there yet.

My family traditions are broken.

I have to face the fact that our family traditions are broken and I don’t know how to revive them. I’m feeling melancholy, a little sorry for myself.

And now it’s time to move forward.

I’m going to redefine how I want to celebrate Easter. Lambs and cakes and bunnies and painted eggs are all fluff, anyway, just like pink and purple peeps. Spending the day with loved ones, an Easter lily on my dining room table, and enjoying a glass of wine on my front porch is all I really need.

And spring’s rebirth is a tradition that happens with or without fanfare. I’ll be there to witness it.

The lamb cake mold will stay entombed under the dining room window seat until there’s reason for it to be born again. The wait will be longer than three days, but good things happen when you believe in miracles–whether it’s a risen Savior, a bunny that lays chocolate eggs, or a son who may one day ask to borrow a mold to resurrect a long lost tradition.

Check out more of my story here.