Past: Easter Parade

Easter was a pretty big deal where and when I grew up.  Because I went to Catholic schools, there was an even bigger buildup to it than to Christmas.  It started with ashes on Ash Wednesday and that began Lent.  We all had to decide what we would give up for Lent, in addition to the stuff everybody was supposed to give up.  Forty days of it, pal.  Endless.

Then finally Holy Week:  Holy Thursday (the Last Supper, the betrayal), Good Friday (the events of the Stations of the Cross, ending with the Crucifixion), Holy Saturday (Christ in his tomb), Easter (Christ's resurrection from the dead.)  Holy week was Christian and not just Catholic (and downtown was dotted with impressive churches of several denominations), so a lot of stores in town would be closed from noon to three p.m. on Friday, commemorating the hours on the cross. All the stores would of course be closed on Easter Sunday.  Especially since they were closed every Sunday.

The same confusing combinations of secular, folk and religious traditions as Christmas were more extreme at Easter, the feast of blood, death and chocolate.  A bloody scourging, carrying the cross, nailed to it, crucified, dead in the tomb, then gone.  Hearing about all this in great detail in school was usually followed by attending the appropriate ceremony in church.  There was usually a church pretty handy to the school.

So after being assaulted with all this, it was home to decorate eggs, smell the baking, maybe a taste or two of batter or icing. I guess the egg decorating was on Saturday. My only clear memory of this was at my grandmother's, on her white tablecloth in the dining room (same as in the photo above.)The mysteries of food coloring, dipping eggs in hot water, watching them turn yellow or blue and fishing them out when they were your desired shade.  I liked the coloring.  Any decorating beyond that wasn't my style.  I was a minimalist.  And I didn't eat the eggs.  Yucky.

Dressing up for Easter Sunday Mass, a bigger deal for my sisters, but if my mother felt I needed a new shirt or suit or something, I usually got it for Easter.  Maybe a new clip-on bow tie!  I found one photo of my sister Kathy and I in our Easter best, but we were obviously in such a foul mood glowering at the camera that I shouldn't post it.  I'm wearing a snazzy hat, too.

Easter morning there would be our Easter baskets. Chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies (some were hollow, which was disappointing, but the solid chocolate ones you could gnaw on for hours), marshmallow peeps, jelly beans.

And the Easter Parade.  Which always confused me because there wasn't one.  Just people crowding out of church like every Sunday. But we had to dress up for one anyway.

My grandmother gave us some live Easter chicks (or "peeps") a few times.  They generally didn't make it to chickenhood, though one did.  He hung around for quite a long time, pecking away in the yard. His name was Elmer.

Easter dinner would pretty invariably be at my grandmother's.  It would be the usual feast--the wedding-style soup, pasta dish, meat course (usually roast chicken--sorry, Elmer), salad, and a dozen side dishes.  And my grandmother would distribute the unique Easter pastries she made for us.  They were thick cookie objects shaped like dolls for the girls and horses with a kind of handle at the top for the boys, covered in icing and sprinkles.  This was the only day of the year that these appeared.

This photo above is from fairly late in the game, about 1964. (Click on it to see it without the right edge cut off.)  I'm in the back row, holding my horse.  I'm about to go off to college in a few months.  Next to me, holding one of her children (Nancy) is Rose Severini, my aunt.  Next to her on the right is my grandfather, Ignazio Severini.  This photo doesn't scan very well for some reason, so it's probably hard to make things out.  (Also the shadows of my head and Aunt Rosie's head have merged with our hair.) But the horse my grandfather is holding is covered with chocolate icing--his favorite--so it's more visible.

The front row is my cousin Susan Severini, my sister Debbie, Tom Severini, my grandmother Giaconda with a baby, which must be Steve Severini, and Shirley Severini.

It's not clear in this photo but on the left side of the table is a cake shaped and decorated like a lamb, its white frosting laden with coconut flakes.  Another of my grandmother's specialties, only at Easter.  I'm not sure what that is in the center.  High over our heads is a portrait of a family member from Italy, but I don't recall who.

The lamb is a Christ symbol. (There were lots of fish side dishes at dinner, another Christ symbol.) The eggs, bunnies and chicks however belong to the original feasting day that Easter is superimposed on, celebrating spring and the generating of new life.  There is also a tradition that people went eggless for Lent, and children were presented with a basket of decorated eggs at Easter to celebrate Lent's end.

Horses and dolls, I have no idea, but safe to say, Italian.  Chocolate is apparently a modern American addition, due to availability and the eager support of chocolate manufacturers, as well as the general rule that any excuse is a good excuse for chocolate.

But I am reminded that despite this melange of "traditions", there were boundaries between them, and lines you didn't cross.  Like the chocolate crucifix I saw on sale a few Easters ago.  That would have been considered sacrilegious.