Sharing Holiday Traditions

Mr. Cupcake and I spent this past Easter weekend with his family in Central Pennsylvania. My family is not very religious, so over the years it has become standard for us to spend this holiday with his family every year. His is a family of strong traditions, and this weekend was no exception.

On Saturday, we visited with his extended family in Lancaster. The day consists of lots of food, catching up with family members (all of whom we were seeing for the first time since they received our save the dates, and everyone had great things to say), and having an Easter egg hunt for the little ones. At the moment, there are only two little ones, but everyone still pitches in to hide eggs and candy, and at one point there were five camera-wielding adults following these two little ones around while they filled their Easter baskets! It was quite the paparazzi moment.

One of the Easter Egg Hunt participants making off with some loot

The other EEH participant came prepared to deal with the slightly muddy conditions

Mr. Cupcake and me outside watching the kiddies

After returning to Mr. Cupcake's parents' house after the festivities, we got out the Paas and Doc Hinkles and got to work on our masterpieces, in the form of dyed hard boiled eggs. Mr. Cupcake and I are pretty competitive, so it always turns a little cutthroat. Here is a sampling of our work:

I swear, he doesn't always wear his York College sweatshirt... although you have seen it before in past posts

After our egg dyeing extravaganza, we got to bed fairly early, since we had to get up bright and early on Sunday morning for sunrise service at church. (Yes, I said SUNRISE! I am not, by any means, a morning person, so this is always quite a feat for me. I must say, I am a good trooper :-) ) I woke up Sunday morning to Mr. Cupcake coming in at 5:30 to tell me it was time to get up and giving me a kiss on the forehead. He then asked if the Easter Bunny came... you see, in Mr. Cupcake's family, the "Easter Bunny" always leaves an egg under your pillow, and an egg in your church shoes. To Mr. Cupcake, this tradition will never get old, even if he is 29 years old! (Sometimes it's just fun to act like little kids, ya know?) Playing along, I picked up my pillow and — oh my! — there was the egg I dyed with my name on it. Suspiciously, it was still cold, almost as if Mr. Cupcake had just put it there when he came to wake me up, but I guess the "Easter Bunny" just likes to keep his eggs refrigerated as long as possible.....

Sunrise service at FIL's Lutheran church is always nice once I've woken up a bit, and it's followed by breakfast in the basement of the church. Afterwards we headed home, and it was time to look for our Easter baskets. The "Easter Bunny" makes a basket for each of us and hides it for us to find. Mr. Cupcake, who has been watching his weight, got a nice polo shirt from the Gap and lots of Orville Redenbacher 100 calorie packs of popcorn. I got some cute leather flip flops from the Gap, a KitKat (my favorite!), a Reese's peanut butter cup (another favorite), nonpareils (oh yeah, I love those, too), and some jelly beans.

The Easter Bunny has good taste. I can't wait till it warms up so I can wear my new flops.

Then, it was naptime until an early dinner at Mr. Cupcake's grandmom's house. Needless to say, we were definitely not starving for a moment this weekend — there was always some yummy food or candy around. After his grandmom's, we made our almost-two-hour journey home, and called it a night. Next year's Easter will be filled with all of the same traditions — next time, though, we'll be married!

What new holiday traditions have you become a part of since combining your families? Do you take turns celebrating holidays with each other's families?