An Easter Five on Friday

Easter is a little more than a week away, but we’ve just barely started our preparations! Here are the five things I’m thinking about as the holiday approaches;

1. Traditionally dyed Easter eggs. Latvians use onion skins and red cabbage to color their eggs, using natural ingredients before it was en vogue. If you would like to give au natural a try this year, my post Œufs blancs covers the onion skin method and Natural Easter eggs instructs on the red cabbage method. Either we’ve eaten fewer onions this previous year or I’ve been slacking on saving the skins, as my bag was far too empty for the deep brown color I strive to get. Yesterday was the day I rummaged through all the onions in the produce department earning strange looks from other customers and the cashier, but after I buy white eggs we’ll be all set to color our eggs next week.

2. Last year I couldn’t procure the necessary farmer’s cheese to make my grandmother’s paska (we were in Ohio and we must have called thirty stores in our search!), and so this year I’ll be driving to Spartanburg’s European Market to pick up the stuff; harder to find than morels in these here parts.

3. Our local Bi-Lo supermarket had pussy willow branches for sale on my last shopping trip, saving me from a mad last-minute search across the Upstate to be prepared this Sunday. I fully intend to be the first one up, earning the privilege to give all the boys a good apaļš kā pūpols, vesels kā rutks wake-up call! (Read my post Pūpolsvētdiena or Palm Sunday here if you're wondering what I'm talking about.)

4. The giant Easter bunny at the company Easter party doesn’t get any more normal-looking as the years go by; every year I think how different this human-size rabbit is from the more rabbit-sized one I imagined hiding all the eggs of my childhood. Eventually won over with the promise of securing bubble wands, the boys still had their doubts; good thing they were too busy admiring one another’s haul from the morning’s egg hunt to give it too much thought.

5. Easter egg baskets. Three favorite things to find in yours on Easter morning?