Archive for the 'Easter' Category

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Nearly done with prep!

Published by rebekah on April 4, 2010 in Easter. 16 Comments

I thought I should give everyone a quick late-night glimpse into Mom’s living room . . . temporarily transformed into a second dining room. This is the adult table.

Here is the bevy of name tags designated for the two kid tables:

And finally, here is my hysterically ugly “gurgle jug” which for some reason I am insanely fond of. I am the proud possessor of not one, but two of them. (Possibly three, I can’t remember.) Anyway, the two that I can find are holding tulips on the kids’ tables. I do feel that I should explain, in my defense, that I only bought them because I was collecting green Dartmouth pottery while I was in England, and I gathered up loads of other fun green thingies at antique stores and charity sales etc. But it turns out that  the most radically popular of all the Dartmouth pottery (judging from the wide assortment on ebay) seemed to be these gurgle jugs. I held off for a while – but finally I caved and decided that it would be ridiculous to have a collection of Dartmouth pottery that didn’t contain a few ugly fish. So I bought them. Now you know. I also have a snail. But aside from those weird items, the rest of the collection is actually quite beautiful!

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Continuing the Lemon Theme

Published by rebekah on April 3, 2010 in Easter. 12 Comments

Valerie asked what I was going to do with all the nekkid lemons . . . and here’s the answer. Little lemon meringue tarts.

Here are all the little meringues, baking in the oven . . .

. . . here are the little shells, cooling in tiny champagne flutes to give them their shape.

And I completely neglected to take a picture of the lemon curd, but you get the idea anyway.

These are great, because you can store all the components separately for up to three days, and then assemble before serving.

Here’s the recipe (from Martha Stewart): Continue reading ‘Continuing the Lemon Theme’

“Good Friday”

Published by Nancy Ann on April 2, 2010 in Easter. 0 Comments

by George Herbert

O my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?

Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show’d thy first breath,
Shall all thy death ?

Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit, be sign,
Of the true vine?

Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour;
That thy distress through all may run,
And be my sun.

Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That, as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sin may so.

Since blood is fittest, Lord, to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store; write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:

That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes,
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
No room for me , and fly away.

Sin being gone, O fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.

As Promised

Published by rebekah on March 30, 2010 in Easter. 13 Comments

Mom promised everyone that I would keep you all updated on the whole Easter dinner preparation extravaganza. And so, here is the complete and total exhaustive list of what I have accomplished so far:

Yes. I have peeled off some lemon peels and they are steeping in a mason jar full of vodka. Things, to date, have not been all that labor intensive. However, I’m expecting them to hot up shortly . . . because a package of fabric is scheduled to arrive any moment . . . and the second it shows up I have to crank out three Easter dresses. Then this Thursday is Jemima’s 10th birthday – and as you may or may not have noticed, that puts her birthday as being on April Fools Day. (Not my fault – I did my best. I was in labor all day on March 31, but she refused to be born until 7 minutes after midnight. Oh well. April is a nicer month than March anyway.) What this means however, is that I’m taking a consignment of cupcakes into her 4th grade class, and she would like them to be April Fools cupcakes. Hhhmmm. Luckily, Lizzie just happens to have, amongst her 9,312 cookbooks, a cookbook that has a special section devoted to April Fools cupcakes. So I’m going to have to borrow that sometime in the next short bit here. And then of course there’s the birthday party, and then Easter dinner preparation.

About the only thing that I could do this far in advance was the limoncello. I’ve made it for Easter a few times, and it’s a great aperitif option if you’re doing hors d’oeuvres. You know, while the kids are having the egg hunt and chowing through the jelly beans it’s nice to have something for the adults. So anyway, the limoncello is fun. In case anyone cares, here’s the recipe: Continue reading ‘As Promised’

Rainy Day Idea #11

Published by rebekah on March 30, 2010 in Easter. 8 Comments

Here’s my contribution to your rainy day activities: Bust out a little project for your Easter table! Here are some splashy little name tags that are super easy . . . and due to the fact that I can not for the life of me figure out how to embed the PDF here on Femina, I have had to post the download and instructions for this little project over at Amoretti. So trot along over there if you’re needing a project for the afternoon that involves a very low level of commitment!

Easter Festivities

Published by Nancy Ann on March 29, 2010 in Easter. 12 Comments

Easter and Advent are the two pivotal Christian celebrations in the church year, so we obviously want our families to honor and commemorate these days in a manner worthy of the great events they mark. Though our secular society also marks these days, we want the tone of our own celebration of these holidays (holy days) to be established by our worship services,  the centerpieces of the festival. In other words, our family celebrations are secondary; the worship is central. So this means we have the pleasure of creating traditions, carrying on old traditions, and enjoying the way we each celebrate with our families in our homes. The church does not mandate how we do this. So since someone asked, let’s start talking about a few Easter traditions.

As I’ve already said, Easter celebration begins with worship. For all my life, Easter Sunday meant new clothes for church, and I still like the symbolism of newness and resurrection in wearing new clothes. It’s not just about the “Easter parade.” New garments  or special clothing has long been a way of signifying the importance and Continue reading ‘Easter Festivities’