Traditions - or - What's Open at 11:00 P.M.?

Another holiday-come and gone. All that anticipating, planning, shopping, cooking, cleaning and obsessing about everything being perfect- then poof, family's gone and the weekend is over. The house is too quiet, the phone isn't ringing and the routine of living day to day returns. It's good to remember, the let down afterwards just proves a wonderful time. If you're not kind of sad it's over, the celebration or holiday may not have been so great in the first place.

We spent the weekend at our cabin, so everyone stayed in one place. It was nice. The weather was delightful so the grandbabies played outside all day with friends they have not seen since last fall. All the young Mom's caught up with one another, new babies were introduced and the older children got sand in their hair and mud between their toes. My Annebelle and twins Lexie and Sophie proudly presented armfuls of Jonquils, carefully plucked from neighboring cottages. Though contraband, the ill gotten gains were proudly displayed by both Grandmothers.

The men of the family went to Tahlequah for Diet Cokes and fishing lures. They returned with a flat screen TV. Looking over their shoulder and with light tread, the culprits tried to sneak it in through another door, but my Mom and Wife radar was on. I caught them as they tiptoed onto the deck with the 4 foot box between them.

Installation began. There was much hammering and wiring. How many Wagner's does it take to hang a television? The answer is one husband, two sons and one son-in-law. Even my one-year-old grandson was right in the middle of the action. Sigh. What is it about men and BIG TVs?

We have talked a lot about family traditions in this blog. Let me share what happened this weekend. It merely reinforces to me how important traditions are, and what they mean to our children.

The Easter Bunny still comes to our house. Yes, my grown children eagerly anticipate Peter Rabbit's annual visit. Festivities have been modified through the years. The frenzied egg hunt has been tabled since knocking their niece and nephew out of the way for a possible golden egg might be considered bad form. The live chicks and ducks era is thankfully in the past. The dyed eggs stopped when the hunters would not even bend down to pick up one. (ever found one of those stink-bombs a week or so later under the couch?)

This year I did a little spring shopping for my children. A pastel polo shirt, a spring sweater, usual fare for this time of year. I carefully included each item in a basket from the dollar store with Easter grass and an assortment of candy. Reese's Eggs, Rain-Blo Bubble gum, Sour Brite Worms.....all family favorites. A squawking rubber chicken, an oinking pig key chain, a laser finger ring ....also included in the baskets. Perfect.

That night at dinner, the kids all started talking about Easters Past. The handcapped chicken with only one leg, the legendary cash egg hunts at a dear friend's house, being late to church every Easter Sunday, and then, "always getting those big chocolate bunnies in our baskets....and anxious for tomorrow so they would get those "big chocolate bunnies in their Easter baskets." Whoops.

I had no chocolate bunnies for the baskets. "You all never eat those bunnies. I find them in your room weeks later and just throw them away. "

Incredulous looks. Horrified expressions. "No chocolate bunnies? Mom, we always get chocolate bunnies in our Easter baskets. It's a tradition. It won't be Easter without biting their little heads off. You're kidding aren't you?"

Needless to say, the next morning, nestled among the jelly beans was a Mr Peter Cottontail-solid milk chocolate- Easter Bunny. The world will now continue to rotate on its axis. The sun will rise in the East and set in the West. Spring will indeed come again. And our family tradition alas, continues.

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