Family Easter traditions

Nearly all of my Easters have been spent in my tiny hometown of Gideon, a little Missouri Bootheel town passers-by could miss in the blink of an eye. It may not have been the most exciting place to grow up, but it's home. It's also the place where my five favorite Easter traditions were created.

1. The Easter egg hunt: My mother is one of nine siblings, so gathering at my grandmother's house each year with all of my cousins to hunt for Easter eggs was practically a competitive sport. We shimmied up trees, ducked under the porch and examined every inch of the front yard trying to collect the most eggs -- or at least the plastic one with the 50 cents we begged off my father rattling around inside. Now that I've graduated from egg hunter to egg hider, I have no less satisfaction watching the next generation in the family make the annual mad dash across the lawn.

2. The Easter dress: It seems trivial, I know, but if you've never experienced the feeling of twirling around your house in a new dress, then you're missing out. There's (slightly) less twirling involved now when I don my dress for Easter Sunday, but it's a tradition I'll always remember fondly.

3. The food: One of the many beautiful things about my mother, aunts and grandmother is the gift that surely was bestowed upon them by culinary angels. Never in my life have I discovered or completely replicated an equal to their Southern comfort food dishes, and I probably never will. While the traditional Easter lunch is considerably smaller than the feast prepared for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I still find myself slumped in a kitchen chair wondering how I possibly ate so much food in one sitting -- and what dessert I should go for when I can walk again.

4. The sunrise service: In my hometown, you could always count on a sunrise service in every church on Easter Sunday. I've always had so much admiration for the people who walk from their cars still rubbing the sleep from their eyes and moments later sit in the pews with rapt attention celebrating "the reason for the season."

5. The simplicity: Other holidays come with so much baggage: finding/making the perfect Halloween costume, cooking (then washing the mountain of dishes for) Thanksgiving dinner, trying not to get trampled as you scour the store aisles for a last-minute Christmas gift -- just making the list is a little stress-inducing. But on Easter, nothing is distracting me from spending more time with my family.

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