Wishing You All A Very Happy Easter!
Our editor Helen Sanderson tells us why she loves Easter: “Easter is my absolute favourite holiday. For me it has all the love of Christmas without the pressure”
As a child my family always went big on the holidays, Christmas, Easter and birthdays. All the family would gather at my parents and we would eat in the ‘best room’ around the huge dinning room table. Mum would always ensure we had a new outfit and matching shoes, and there would be presents. When I became a mum I took on the mantle of celebrating the holidays in a big way for my daughters. We actually celebrate everything and can always find any excuse to have a get together and a new dress, but there’s something very special about Easter.
Many see Easter as the poor relation to Christmas, but not me. I’m not sure whether it is the extended holiday weekend at the beginning of spring when the weather is always getting better, or the chance to eat chocolate for breakfast, but I always look forward to Easter. Christmas takes weeks of planning, events you need to attend and places you need to be, amongst a background of staging and executing the perfect Christmas Day for your children and family. I’m exhausted just thinking about it, or perhaps I’m still recovering from the last one!
Easter just arrives. I don’t feel obliged to see the family I barely see all year and I can celebrate with friends who ‘drop-in’ for a glass or two of fizz. My daughters and my nieces expect a visit from the Easter Bunny with an Easter egg hunt but they don’t need piles of presents, in fact they are happy to have fun in the garden running wild in a pair of bunny ears.
Like many followers of Christian and Catholic faiths I close out Lent on Easter Sunday by attending a church service but then it’s about gathering with friends and family and really celebrating spring. The house is filled with Easter lilies as a reminder of our loved ones who are no longer with us and over the past few years we have had an ‘Easter tree’ and an Easter wreath on the front door. The kitchen cupboards will be filled with hot cross buns and seminal cake and we will have a huge family roast dinner on the Sunday. Being proud Prestonian’s we go ‘egg rolling’ on Easter Monday. Over the past few years we haven’t been able to go to the traditional site of Avenham Park so it’s the ‘hill’ at granddads that the girls run up and down with their decorated hard boiled eggs and chocolate eggs.
Preston’s annual Egg Rolling event is back for 2022 this Easter Monday, 18th April. There will be comedy performances, the Magical Bewonderment Machine (an artist-built carousel for children), and many quirky and unique acts. Of course, the egg rolling itself will take place. More details to be announced soon, so keep your eyes peeled on visitpreston.com
Traditions are all part of what makes a holiday special, especially the ones that create warm fuzzy feelings and remind me of my childhood. However, you are spending the Easter Holiday I hope its filled with love and laughter.
