I know Easter weekend has come and gone, but there is so much value in learning from our experiences. As you all know, Easter in this season of quarantine was very different in every way. As that weekend approached my mind was spinning with ideas (or expectations) of what I thought our Easter at home would look like.
Like many moms, I had thoughts of our family still wearing our ‘Sunday best.’ I gave that expectation up real quick. It wasn’t a battle I cared to fight. I didn’t even have the discussion. Honestly, I didn’t want to dress up either. I was holding someone else’s expectation on that one.
It is amazing to me how many other expectations I had for the day that were 100% living in my head without me even knowing it. I wanted to have brunch, watch the service, have communion as a family, watch The Passion, do an egg hunt and color eggs. We color eggs every year.
I have been married 20 years and have learned a thing or two. I knew all of those activities were only in MY head. I would have to communicate each piece in detail with my husband and hope I had buy-in from him. I shared with him my thoughts for Easter and he was on board. The only piece I did not communicate was coloring eggs. We have had that tradition for years. Surely it didn’t need to be said.
Our morning started late as we had a late brunch and watched the service. We had a little bit of technically difficulty but my husband, Kam is always our IT help and he got it going. We then had communion as a family and watched The Passion. After the movie, we set up the egg hunt (which with teenagers included a little bit of cash mixed in with some chocolatey goodness.) It had been a great day with hours of family time. Even with the day seeming so perfect, my head knew we had not colored eggs. My teens were now officially checked out. They had spent over half the day together and were ready to disperse.
I was a little sad. I quietly mentioned the eggs the rest of the day, but no one was interested. I had a few errands to run the next day, so I was out of the house for a number of hours. I came back to a dozen eggs that had been drawn on with sharpies. They hadn’t been colored but they really were cute. My husband drew each of us in the family on four of the eggs. He then proceeded to make each of our eggs talk. He even did little skits for the next few days with those silly eggs. It was soooo much fun. He would have his egg and my egg kissing and send the video on our family text while we were all at our make-shift desks focused on either school or work. It was hilarious!!
The moral of the story is:
- Communicate your expectations. This means you will have to identify them first in your own mind. Come to your family with the attitude that these are your desires, not your demands.
- Let the creativity of your family allow you to be flexible with traditions and memories. They can often turn out to be more meaningful moment, simply because they contributed to the idea.