Family Easter Traditions by The Quacker Factory |

As Easter 2014 approaches, I wanted to share a few fun stories about Easter from myself and some members of our Quacker Factory team. And, of course, I had to include a few fun pictures! Enjoy! Myself (Yes, I insisted on wearing my Brownie uniform)

Well I remember my sisters and I having lots of fun on Easter. Of course, leading up to the big day we would dye eggs in all sorts of colors!! I know my Mom was not so happy to clean up our mess!! On Easter morning, we would wake up to see the baskets that the Easter Bunny left for us, my favorite—peanut butter eggs!! Then we would go to church, and, afterwards, we headed to our Grandparents’ house for Easter dinner. My Grandmother would make a cold buffet—ham, potato salad, macaroni salad and other cold dishes. My Uncle used to make this egg mold of scrambled eggs that he cooked then shaped into almost a cheese ball, and then we’d slice it up and serve it. At the time, I really did NOT get this dish!! As years went on and my sisters and I started planning Easter dinner, we decided that we wanted a hot Easter dinner. We were tired of our Grandmother’s tradition. That lasted a few years, and, when I began planning and hosting, I really missed the traditional dinner my Grandmother made. So I started making a mix of both hot and cold side dishes to go with our Easter ham. This tradition has stuck…for the moment anyway.

Patrick Hoy

Well, I wish that I could say that my favorite tradition about Easter, while growing up, was painting and dying the Easter eggs, but that just wasn’t the case. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I really did love sitting at the table with my little brother, mother, and father, and dying the eggs, but the problem was that I was not the best at coloring within the lines, so my eggs never seemed to look as pretty as everyone else’s. And if the truth be known, I always ended up with more dye on my hands, face, lips, ears and clothes than on the eggs!! But the tradition that I REALLY loved was HUNTING for the Easter eggs!! We had a community youth group center where I grew up, and every year at Easter they would have an Easter egg hunt. And each year we would go there after church on Easter Sunday, and the hunt would begin! It’s no secret that I LOVE candy, so the minute they said ‘Go!’ I was the leader of the pack and would be racing around to find every egg I could in hopes that each one would be stuffed with candy! Of course, the big prize came if you found the golden egg, and you just know that I did everything I could to find that one. No one was safe if they got in my way!! Well, imagine my surprise and absolute delight the year I actually found that golden egg. Not only did I win the biggest Easter basket, stuffed with candy, that I had ever seen, but I won a white Easter bunny as well!! Here’s a picture of me with that bunny. I think you can tell from my smile how happy I was!

Kristy Destefano

One of the best Easter traditions we had was going to our local township park for their annual Easter egg hunt. There were SOOOOO many kids there, and I always remember it being crazy. Also, every Easter the “Easter Bunny” would hide our baskets at our grandparents’ house. My brother, TJ, and I could not wait to get there and find them. They were always filled with so much candy. There was always a big egg in the middle of the basket with our names on them in white icing. Most years there were the hollow sugar eggs with the opening on the end and a figurine on the inside. My grandmother would make her “famous” Italian cookies, which I make now as well as her Easter eggs – coconut and peanut butter. It was hard to pick which I liked the best…I think I changed favorites every other year. Here is a picture of my brother and me in 1977-ish?

Tim Bice

Jeanne’s son & co-founder of The Quacker Factory One of my favorite Easter traditions has always been the sunrise church service on Easter morning. When I was a kid, we went to Grace Lutheran Church in Ripon, WI. The sunrise service was filled with excitement and joy, song and pageantry, trumpets and kettle drums, and the great gift that God gave us all with his son. I have always been a faith-filled man, but it seems so much more real that morning when we all say these words – He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! When I was young, that is how my family always greeted each other on Easter morning, and now, some 50 years later, I still feel it so strongly and with such joy that it is like I become a kid again.

Now as an adult, my wife Karin and I and our son James, if he can get home for the holiday, still enjoy the tradition of sunrise service. We go to St. Joe’s Church here in Delray Beach, FL, and there are still songs, and trumpets, and kettle drums. It is great to know that in today’s crazy world that some things are still as they were. There is still joy, pageantry, and the promise of Easter. I hope you all get a visit from the Easter Bunny and you keep on Quacking!!! Finally I wanted to share a photograph of one of Jeanne Bice’s trees. You know how much Jeanne loved the holidays, and she had a tree for every occasion. Here is her Easter tree…wasn’t she was the best decorator of trees, ever?!