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As many of you know, Mr. Handsome enjoys painting. In general, he likes activities that allow him to work with his hands and use his creative and artistic gifts. Over the weekend, he and Little Buddy sat down for a full hour to make valentines. Little Buddy loved it, and Mr. Handsome got into it, too. They made a few varieties, including the one above.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Today’s post is about Easter Dinner. We are about three months late, but better late than never, right?
Before this year, Mr. Handsome and I had never hosted a family holiday dinner. We have hosted friends for holiday dinners, but never family. So this year for Easter, we had my brother-in-law and sister-in-law over for a big meal.
So much work goes into hosting a dinner, especially when it’s a holiday dinner. You want everything to be perfect. We got home from church and spent the entire afternoon cooking. My sister-in-law suggested we eat lamb to represent Christ’s sacrifice. Lamb on Easter isn’t a tradition that either Mr. Handsome or I held growing up, but I know some families do.
Mr. Handsome cooked a leg of lamb on the smoker, and I made most of the side dishes. We did spinach strawberry salad with lemon honey vinaigrette, sweet buns, roasted asparagus, and smoked potatoes. It all went very well and was quite delicious, but we were both exhausted by the time our relatives arrived. I have new respect for the amount of work it took my mom to make holiday dinners growing up. She was usually the one hosting.
What was the first holiday dinner you hosted? What do you eat on Easter?
The title pretty much sums up this post. Are any of my readers right there with me? With a toddler and a newborn, the best gift I can give myself this holiday season is sleep. We made homemade, deep dish pizza (one of Mr. Handsome’s family traditions….more on that in a later post) and drank sparkling grape juice before putting Little Buddy to bed. Then I fed the baby while we watched two episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show (Mr. Handsome loves that show, and it was his night to choose what to watch) and called it a night. Mr. Handsome stayed up another hour to get the baby to sleep, but we were all in bed well before 11pm.
It was the earliest and quietest New Years Eve that either of us have had since early childhood, but it was a good one.
I am looking forward to sharing my birth story with all of you, although it was a harrowing experience, and it will take me a little time to put together the energy to relive and write the story. Stay tuned.
How did all of you spend New Years Eve?
With Easter coming up this weekend, I thought it would be fun to discuss Easter traditions. I’ll share mine, and then I would love for you to share yours.
Growing up, my parents always filled our Easter baskets with goodies and hid them somewhere in the house. Our family prefers chocolate over candies, so there was always a chocolate bunny (usually dark chocolate) and a bunch of chocolate eggs.
My mom also made sweet Easter buns with icing, a tradition that was a passed on from her mother. We always went to church on Easter Sunday and then prepared a fancy dinner, usually ham and potatoes.
Mr. Handsome’s family traditions are similar. He says the thing that sticks out in his mind most about his childhood Easter celebrations was the year he hung a chocolate bunny from a tree with fishing line so his younger siblings couldn’t get at it. His brothers and sisters eventually figured out a way to cut it down, but it had already mostly melted.
The photo at the top of this post is from a 2018 TV news segment I did for WBKO in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The topic was Easter baskets on a budget. What a fun Easter memory that was!
As a mom, I plan to focus our Easter celebrations around the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Both Mr. Handsome and I want to make sure that Little Buddy and his possible future siblings know the Easter story. We will also add in a few other traditions, like Easter egg hunts and chocolate bunnies.
What are your Easter traditions, both now and as a child?
Growing up with a mom who was raised by European parents, gingerbread was a big part of our Christmas celebration. Every December, we made gingerbread houses and spent hours baking and decorating dozens of homemade gingerbread cookies. We kept plenty for ourselves and shared the rest with the neighbors. When I married Mr. Handsome, I was saddened to discover that gingerbread wasn’t a part of his family’s holiday traditions. After all, who can resist a perfectly baked gingerbread cookie?
I really want our children to grow up enjoying gingerbread as much as I do, so I have kept the traditional alive and well by making gingerbread cookies every year. (We also make sugar cookies, since those are Mr. Handsome’s favorite.)
This year, I told myself at Thanksgiving that I wasn’t going to do any holiday baking, both because I am trying to eat healthy for the baby’s sake and because I’m about ready to pop. But when I was at the store last week and walked past the molasses and mini M&M’s, I just couldn’t take it. I had to make gingerbread cookies. It was a tiring process but completely worth the effort.
For those who love gingerbread as much as I do (or maybe you haven’t ever tried it–gasp!), my gingerbread and royal icing recipes are below. What’s your favorite type of Christmas cookie?…
This weekend, once Thanksgiving was officially over, Mr. Handsome and I kicked off the Christmas season with a visit to a Christmas tree farm. The trees were average, but the farm had about 15 live reindeer, which turned out to be the highlight of our visit.
Have you ever seen a reindeer in person? I hadn’t.
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