Creamed Eggs and Ham for Easter

Easter is about eternity. And that’s what it seemed like as a kid.

The Lenten season, which leads up to Easter, is seven weeks long. We had to attend Lenten services every Wednesday night even though we knew how it ended. And, unlike Christmas, there was no real reward at the end other than candy. And the lead-up to the Christmas season (Advent) is only four weeks long.

At least we did get a week or so off from school around Easter. For many years we went to my sister Laurel’s home in Rochester for Easter dinner. We had ham and scalloped potatoes. Then we flew kites if the weather permitted. It’s always windy in Rochester. But other than gorging on candy and finding the eggs Mom had hidden in the house, Easter was just one more hurdle before summer.

But no matter how we spent the holiday, it was nothing like Easter on Catherine’s side of the family. The Friedrichs are nothing without tradition.

Their initial focus was on finding the Easter eggs Catherine’s mother Char had hidden. They even had rules. They had to all be hidden on the main floor, you couldn’t holler when you found one because you’d just give away its location and they weren’t collected until everyone had found them all (or gave up).

The total number was often a perilous mystery. She would count them and write it down. She did not record where she hid them, however, and she was prone to miscounting them or forgetting which magazine cover she wrote the count on. One memorable year they missed finding one egg. Whoever found it later won it by a nose.

Another year Char decided it would be fun for the kids if the eggs were hidden outside around the house. It snowed, making it even harder to find them. And the eggs froze.

The Holiday Trifecta

Catherine’s grandmother Frances (Dammy) Friedrich always served a turkey at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. When looking at photos of the turkey being carved, the only way to know what season it was is by the centerpiece she used. Very pragmatic. She never got up until noon so Lent was the only time she attended church because of the Wednesday night service.

Dammy used to dye eggs for the centerpiece and one year she got a beautiful deep royal purple one, evenly colored all around. Everyone admired it so much, she saved it in the fridge and used it every year. The actual egg inside the shell eventually dried up, shrunk, and rattled.

I don’t remember when egg trees became all the rage but both our mothers had them as did Dammy. I remember how impossible it seemed for the egg to squeeze through a tiny hole so the shell was all that remained. The egg shells were dyed and emblazoned with glitter and whatever stuck to Elmer’s glue.

I’ve always known Char to be fond of rabbits. Every direction you turned in her house you’d see things like bunny doorstops, towels, figurines, framed paintings, you name it. There might be new additions to this collection each Easter and certainly her birthday. They were definitely prominent on Easter.

An old photo shows Catherine and her siblings in their new Easter outfits. I asked her where all the new clothes came from. Char made them all, even the Easter bonnets. Catherine and her sister Ann often had identical outfits.

The Easter Parade

There’s a whole month that Easter Day can occur. Old photos showed that some years there was still snow on the ground and others looked like summer was about to burst. But there they were, snow or not, in their new Easter outfits.

We Johnson kids did not have to wear Easter outfits, thank goodness. Mom sewed but most of her limited sewing time was spent replacing buttons and fighting with zippers. We sometimes might get a new shirt and tie for Easter so we’d have something new to wear at summer weddings.

Easter candy is like Halloween candy in that it’s put out for sale months ahead of the actual holiday and it is guaranteed to be on sale just before the holiday because the store doesn’t want to be stuck with it.

Halloween candy provides a better variety, easily recognizable by their wrappers. But I like Easter candy because it’s mostly chocolate-based and it’s the only time of year you’re allowed to gorge on it, especially those (now rare) solid chocolate bunnies. The kind you need to use your molars to bite into.

We ended the Easter season by eating creamed eggs on toast cups, made from the hard-boiled eggs we foraged. And that was it.

Except for the candy we hid.