How to Celebrate
It was early; Puck, who hadn’t had a cold after all, was just sniffing from his room examining some Where’s Waldo on a Sunday morning.
“Puck, blow your nose,” El Oso called to him.
“Dad, it doesn’t work. It just really annoys me to sniff … (sniff, sniff) … this is just the way God made me … (sniff, sniff) … and it really really really really really annoys me to sniff.”
On that note, we started Easter Sunday.
Breakfast casseroles, bagel spreads, fresh fruit, jugs of coffee … church had provided a 9:15 meal for the congregation. Unfortunately, when I looked across the table, I realized that Puck had grabbed no less than ten bagel halves away from my watch, digging out the soft innards and leaving the shells stacked on his plate.
Following the service, Irish and I hid plastic eggs for Puck all over the back yard, twenty of them. Only nineteen were found of course. That’s always the way it goes. However, Puck was only moderately impressed with Irish’s and my ability to hide eggs:
“Seriously?” he grinned. “You can do better than that.”
The silver (a.k.a. tin-foil-wrapped) egg awarded Puck with a prize inside: green creeper Minecraft ball cap.
The girls were piled on the couch, mostly asleep, before the rest of the family arrived. The Combs and Grandma, Aunt Day and Uncle Bobs, Uncle Larry. It was mild now, both picnic tables in use. The boys waxed Uncle Mo’s new car, shiny black. Got through the whole afternoon with only about twenty jellybeans in Puck’s gut, and I think just one subsequent “YAAAAAH!” running through the house waving his arms in the air.
Then … Mom pulled out the “Easter Jeopardy” board. Girls against “the boiz.” I don’t enjoy most games, but there is something hilarious about a dozen or so adults shouting back and forth about who guessed “hot cross buns” first. Or:
“NO WAY PEEPS ARE THE MOST POPULAR EASTER CANDY!”
“ARE TOO!”
“THAT’S DISGUSTING! NO ONE EATS THAT STUFF!”
“What are Peeps?”
And arguing across the living room about whether Pontius Pilate or, in fact, the Roman soldiers actually wrote “King of the Jews” on the board at Golgotha. Maybe there’s some sacrilege involved there; I wouldn’t exactly know. Either way, the girls won.