Easter Traditions

For Easter every year, our family basically does the same ten traditions to celebrate the holiday. This is how a traditional Easter would go for us...

Easter Tradition #1: Go to Grandma & Grandpa Perkins' house in Tremonton.

Normally we go and stay for two nights, but this year we were only able to spend one night. We drove down on Saturday mid-morning, and came back home on Sunday evening.

E.T. #2: Dye Easter eggs with Grandma on Saturday night.

I have never had to boil the eggs or purchase the dyes and accessories, because my mom has always done this with the boys. And they look forward to it doing it with Grandma and their aunts! 

E.T. #3: Find the dyed Easter Eggs that are hidden in the house along with the Easter Baskets with goodies that the bunny brought!

After all the boys are awake on Easter Sunday morning, they find their Easter baskets and then find all the hidden hard-boiled eggs that they dyed the night before. The Easter bunny brought the boys basketballs, frisbees, bubbles, and chocolates this year!

E.T. #4: Go to church with Grandma and Grandpa.
Depending on what time their church is, we either attend all their meetings with them or just go to Sacrament Meeting. This year, we just went to Sacrament Meeting.

E.T. #5: Eat the traditional Easter meal after church (ham, potatoes au gratin, corn, rolls, salads) with all the family.
My mom makes the most amazing potatoes au gratin: she cooks the potatoes and then shreds them all by hand. And she makes multiple pans of it when we all get together, because they're so good, that we all want to take the leftovers too!

E.T. #6: Read about the Savior's resurrection from the scriptures.
We each pull a plasstic egg out of the jar, and each egg has a scripture in it, and a small token that symbolizes what the scripture is talking about regarding Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.

E.T. #7: Have a family meeting for Grandma to give everyone the rules for the Annual Perkins Family Egg Hunt.

Every year, my mom adds new things to the hunts, or changes the rules a little bit, and we have a meeting before the hunts to discuss the changes.

E.T. #8: The children have an Egg Hunt in the front yard.
There's a starting line so the kids have an equal advantage to begin the hunt. They pick up a pre-determined number of eggs, and find one large candy item each in the front yard. Each egg is worth a money value that is redeemed after the hunt is over.

E.T. #9: The adults have an Egg Hunt in the back yard.

There is one gold and one silver egg that are hidden and are worth big bucks when found. The adults also all get a pre-determined number of eggs to find, and they are all worth money that is redeemed after the hunt has ended. This year, the 3 youngest sisters were allowed a headstart on the hunt because none of them had ever found a gold or silver egg before, and my mom was trying to give them an advantage. I found the silver egg again this year, and Tabbi found the gold!

E.T. #10: Play the Chubby Bunny game

We started playing this game last year. Each person puts one marshmallow in their mouth at a time and says the words "chubby bunny" after each marshmallow. The person with the most marshmallows in their mouth that can still say the phrase wins money. The adults and kids play separately. Last year, Josh won (despite his hatred for marshmallows). This year he got second place to Cody! And Ammon won the kid contest for the 2nd year in a row! (Since I played the game myself, I barely had enough time from cleaning up my mouth and grabbing my camera to capture Josh on film--and by that time, the marshmallows were already on their way out!)

I just love spending Easter with my family, and I enjoy all the traditions that we have that make the holiday special for our family! I am so grateful for my mom and dad for hosting the annual event, and for making it such a wonderful occasion full of happy memories for me and my children!