One of my lasting memories of Easter as a child was the making of the Easter Garden in our church in Norfolk on Easter Saturday. Whilst the adults were busy cleaning and decorating the church with beautiful flower displays, a few of my friends and I would be left to create the Easter Garden, we were able to use the floor at the back of the church around the font.The first part of the morning we would be out on our bikes collecting moss from the roots of trees in the nearby wood, picking up small twigs and picking primroses and daisies and other pretty little flowers. We'd also bring shells and stones that we'd collected on the beach the year before.
We'd have a big board on the floor that we would cover with sand and shingle and a little soil, we'd use old foil cake holders for water for the flowers. We'd make the tomb from large rocks, leaving a boulder just rolled away from the entrance, a white cloth representing the shoud would be lain in the tomb. We'd also build a mound and cover that in moss and place 3 crosses on it, this woulod be our Calvary.Moss would be strewn all over the rocks and floor, we'd make a little twisting stream using tin foil. All very Blue Peter!! Then we'd decorate with the flowers, shells, pebbles and twigs, until we could fit no more on it.
Once we'd finished we'd run round the grave yard looking at the different graves stones and playing till the adults had finished there decorating, then we'd go home to wait for Easter Sunday.
As an adult in my church in Surrey I used to take my children to help make the garden there too, this was a far superior garden with plants bought from the garden centre as well as contributions from the children!
Another delightful tradition is painting and decorating eggs, though the ones I used to do with the children never looked like these!
9 comments:
That's lovely Muddie - I've seen that done in Churches too, but sometimes its all done too 'well' - you know what I mean. It's nicer if the children can do it and learn about Easter that way.
I used to paint blown eggs with my girls, and the children I minded. We were eating omelettes for weeks before so I had enough eggs.
It is a shame so many of these traditions are dieing out, thanks for sharing your memories, it was wonderful to hear how things are done in different parts of the country. I often think we don't make enough effort to keep them going in this fast modern world, and then we lose so much. When my kids were small , we would paint eggs, or dye them with onion skins and take them to an egg rolling event on the Duke of Wellington's estate, and then walk off all the extra energy from too much chocolate. Great Fun!
How we loved helping to make an Easter garden for our Sunday school. Thank you for that reminder.
My ggdds sometimes make gardens in seed trays out of whatever they can find in my garden.
Nice idea for Easter.
Caitx
A lovely blog. I had too much religion drummed into me as a child ever really to take pleasure from doing anything in a church except being there alone and sensing the spirituality of the place. But the ritual I did enjoy was the (possibly pagan) Easter egg hunt. Placing decorated eggs in the garden for the children to find. Hot cross buns are wonderful too and long may they go on making them I could eat them toasted with melted butter anyday of the year.
Happy Easter to you, Elaine!
Your childhood Easter memories have dislodged some of my own.
During Lent, we used to be given little boxes into which we were to insert coins, representing money that we wanted to donate to a church designated cause. Instead of buying candy, or nail polish, or maybe a 45 rpm record, we would push a few coins in the slot in the top of the box.
Then. On Easter morning we would take along with us to church our Lent boxes, along with a little bouquet of flowers freshly cut from our family garden.
At a certain moment of the service, we children were invited to come to the front of the congregation. In front of us was a cross-shaped sort of free-form bookcase structure.
On one side we would place our Lent boxes, and we would hand over our bouquets to some sort of churchly assistant.
When all children had finished with this procedure, and had returned to our family pews, the bookcase structure would be rotated 180 degrees, and we would see all our bouquets had resulted in the creation of a magnificent floral cross! Magic transformation.
I would be greatly surprised if this tradition is still in place. I am describing a 1950's childhood.
xo
Oh what a lovely tradition. I don't remember doing anything like that for Easter when I was a child - although we did all get together as a family.
Our favorite Easter tradition was to hide painted eggs and chocolate bunnies in the garden for th children and their friends to find.
Hi Elaine,
Lovely blog, it reminded me of what my grandchildren used to do in our garden with little foil trays to put little flowers in when they were younger.
I remember Easter going to church when I was small girl, and so too painting eggs in different colours with my Mother.
Camilla.xx
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