Easter weekend

Here's my account from last weekend which also happened to be Easter. 

Saturday

Our Saturday began with my husband doing a drive-by no-touch grocery pickup at a restaurant-turned-grocery spot. We spent our afternoon in our garden with the kids running around and playing in water. It was a sunny day with deliciously warm weather in the afternoon. Our garden is in full bloom with its roses in various brilliant hues, which brought in a bit of a festive atmosphere.

We plan to do an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the backyard tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll find our plastic eggs that we plan to fill with printouts of their favorite characters. They’ll wear new clothes that they got from my parents when we visited India. Dinner will be chicken and vegetable paella. If we have time, we may bake a cake tomorrow. My husband picked up an Easter basket with goodies for the kids at the drive-by grocery this morning (score!). 

We hope to catch up with family over video call tomorrow and maybe watch Easter services online.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday started off a bit rough after a poor night’s sleep, but we got it back on track. My husband organized an Easter egg hunt for the kids which they thoroughly enjoyed. He found our stash of plastic eggs that we pull out every Easter and prepared the small ones for our toddler and the larger ones for our daughter. We usually fill these eggs with cutouts of their favorite characters that we print at home (DIY ftw!)

To add to the Easter special-ness we also got an Easter goodie bag at the grocery store pickup. This had cookies, candies and other goodies for our daughter. She believes that the Easter bunny had come and left her the eggs and the goodie bag, which she found in a tree. She came to this conclusion herself after seeing the Easter bunny decorations outside many of the houses in our neighborhood. She just couldn’t wait to go out and look for the Easter eggs that morning. What a magical world she lives in! Just this evening, we watched music videos from The Sound of Music, and she remarked “This is so fantastical!” (fantastic + magical, maybe?)

Anyway, the kids enjoyed their Easter egg hunt. Our son also liked running around and finding eggs everywhere, although he didn’t quite understand what it was about. After they played for a bit, we watched Andrea Bocelli’s Easter performance from the Duomo. I remember my first work trip to Europe, which happened to be to Milan. I had spent my first evening at the Duomo, and had gone back the following day by myself to walk around on its rooftop which had beautiful views. I returned with my husband a few years later. All of it feels like a lifetime ago.

My husband tuned in to the Pope’s Easter mass for a short while, and it was surreal to see scenes from around the world in lockdown. We also spoke to our parents and wished our nanny and her family for Easter. The kids dressed up in their new clothes, and it felt special and festive. We made crepes for breakfast, followed by a lunch of omelettes, refried potatoes and salad. My daughter and I baked a chocolate cake in the afternoon, and my husband made a special vegetable paella in the evening for dinner, with chicken meatballs on the side.

It was a simple, peaceful celebration which we probably wouldn’t have done very differently sans quarantine. We enjoyed our day very much. But as usual, I also enjoyed the following morning which I tend to do after any special occasion. On the day after, the pressure is off, we'd have already had a nice celebration to remember (hopefully) and can go back to our regular scheduled programming!