Episode #225: Easter Traditions

Easter is this Sunday, so we are talking about our Easter traditions and how we celebrate. Plus, we are doing our guilty pleasure treasures.

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Show Notes:

Nova’s Girl Scout Cookies

Thoughts on Easter:

Elsie: It’s the most challenging holiday to decorate for

Emma: Thinks of it more as the start of spring instead of a Christian holiday

Easter traditions from childhood:

Going to church, Easter egg hunt in their grandma’s backyard, and opening Easter baskets first thing in the morning

Easter traditions with your kids:

Elsie – Easter baskets with an outfit and a toy, hosting an Easter egg hunt

Emma – Easter baskets with a new swimsuit, a book, and candy

Make Laura’s Peep Jello Shots

Check out our Easter blog posts

Here’s our post on Childhood Magic about Easter Books and Activities

Favorite Easter candy:

Elsie – Reese’s Egg

Emma – Cadbury Mini Eggs

How do you decorate for Easter:

Elsie – She doesn’t

Emma – Garland, wooden egg that has Oscar’s footprint on it

Guilty Pleasure Treasure:

Elsie – Urban Outfitters Ballet Flats and Sam Edleman Ballet Flats

Emma – Dolce Vita Sandals

Check out Created Colorful

Miss an Episode? Get Caught Up!

• Episode #224: It’s Spring Bucket List Time!
• Episode #223: Buying Furniture for Your Home – Deep Dive
• Episode #222: Hook – Comfort Rewatch

Episode 225 Transcript:

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Emma: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast your cozy comfort listen. Easter is this Sunday. So we are talking about Easter traditions, things we grew up with, how we’re planning to celebrate this year, all things Easter. 

Elsie: Yeah, I have so many good memories of we had like an Easter egg hunt at our grandma’s house growing up. And it was arranged by age. So I always had to go last like I was the last. 

Emma: She’s the oldest. 

Elsie: Cuz I’m the oldest cousin, which is totally unfair. 

Emma: They should have arranged it by athleticism because our cousin Andy’s younger than us, but he’s very athletic. 

Elsie: That’s true. Yeah. So anyway, getting ahead of ourselves, but I do think that it’s a very sweet holiday. And I love doing Easter baskets for our kids. And I’m excited this year to like one up it with the thing we’re gonna do. 

Emma: I agree. Yes. So let’s talk about childhood, which we’re kind of diving into already and just general thoughts on Easter. So personally, we grew up Evangelical Christian, we have some past episodes about that. So growing up, Easter was a very religious holiday to me. But now personally, I just think if it is more like celebrating Spring, I don’t really subscribe to the He is risen part of it personally. But I love celebrating Spring. And I also love celebrating grace, which I think is another way to look at the holiday. You know, love generally good message anytime of year, I’ll do it for Christmas. We’ll do it for Easter. I don’t care when love is great. Yeah. So I’m a big fan of that. I also love deviled eggs. So I take it back Easter is religious in that way because deviled eggs are so delicious but yeah, growing up, I feel like the big tradition was grandma’s Easter egg hunt in her backyard, going to church at Grandma’s church.  And then our parents would do Easter baskets. And I feel like we would open them before church like it was when you first woke up. And the main one I remember as I was getting older, like I was kind of like a preteen, but my parents were still doing it because they’re just sweet and the best and I got these like wedge heels that I really wanted. This is so 90s, that were like clear, but they had like a dried flower in them. So you could see the dried flower in the wedge heel. They were very like Clueless meets boho, I guess. I don’t know. 

Elsie: Yeah, Emma had like a very good Clueless era in like sixth grade. She got all of the velvet clothes from Limited Too and yeah, like plastic jewelry, like the classic choker.

Emma: I could not walk in these shoes. So it was very sweet that my parents bought them for me. I could not walk in them. But I did. And I loved them. And I still remember them to this day. And it was like in my Easter basket. Such a little like teenager preteen thing. 

Elsie: Okay, let’s talk about Easter baskets because, yeah, so same for me. It’s not like a religious holiday. Obviously, It’s a pastel holiday. Okay, so my general thoughts on Easter are that it’s really hard to decorate forb ecause I think it’s like, okay, please don’t be mad. I think it’s the ugliest holiday decorations out of all the holidays because it’s pastels. Pastels aren’t usually my like, number one. And also it’s like just you know, the carrots and the eggs. And it’s not that it’s not cute, but I feel like it’s hard to make it fit with the style that I like. So I think the nice way, say just the most challenging. There are I mean, for sure if I kept trying I’m sure there’s like a way, but I haven’t found it yet. Okay, Easter baskets. So in 2020, the Easter of a lifetime. We set the bar high for ourselves, which I think that a lot of people did. 

Emma: What else was there to do? 

Elsie: Like yeah, it was right when the pandemic started. So we did like scooters from the Easter Bunny, and I feel like it was a curse. 

Emma: I’m thinking about doing a scooter so let’s dive into this. 

Elsie: Don’t make it from the Easter Bunny. Don’t make the Easter Bunny bring giant big Christmas level presents. I would say just keep the basket and then just get the scooter from yourself on a regular day. Because then every year you have to be on that level. I set the bar too high but I already did it. So I’m already cursed. You don’t have to be it’s your choice. But I do like a spread. And it’s like just on the dining room table. That’s how our mom did it. So usually I just give them each like an outfit and then the basket and then maybe like some kind of toy. Like the scooters were obviously like an exceptional thing that like fit with 2020 because we were trying to find things to do. Every year now I’m like trying really hard to like live up to that standard. 

Emma: You have to do a scooter every year.  I will say I think my kids young enough he might not really register. I might get a pass this year. I’m running low on those years with him. But yeah, Easter baskets. Yeah, we got to do the same thing. Like he gets his swimsuit. He gets a new swimsuit. He usually gets a book and it’s usually like a Spring themed or Easter themed book. Then some kind of candy but my kids on a big candy eater, so I really don’t go hard on the candy because it’s not his thing really. 

Elsie: I think it’s good to just do like a little bit of candy because you already have the eggs, if you do any kind of egg hunt, you already have so much candy. Okay, so protip put real carrots in your basket and your kids will like freaking love it. It’s so cute. Especially if you can find like, you know at the health food store, the ones that still have the green stems? It’s so authentic. Okay, so, Easter traditions from childhood, who already talked about Easter egg hunt. And we have like a big church childhood. So I feel like Easter is a little weird for me. 

Emma: It was always a little scary. Because as a kid, it’s like, the sermons about the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was in our church. And, you know, it’s kind of what Easter is about for that type of Christianity. And that’s a scary story as a kid, so it’s very, I don’t know, I remember having a lot of mixed feelings on Easter to like that part of it was always like, I was like, I’m a little scared. 

Elsie: I have really complicated feelings on how to present it to my children. Because I feel like Christmas like the birth of Christ is really easy to present. And kind of honestly simple and I mean, it has the miracle thing, but it’s like not as much as this one. This one’s like, it’s very confusing how to present it to children, since I’m like, a first generation religiously gray person. So I don’t know. It’s confusing. But anyway, for everyone else who has any kind of like religious trauma from your childhood. We’re with you on Easter making the best of it too. We see you, we feel it. You know, it’s confusing. Okay. I will say though, to make this light hearted. On our blog, Laura made peeps jello shots. She’s made like 100 jello shots, but they are the cutest jello shot I’ve ever seen. They’re so cute. So we have an Easter tab on the blog right now. So it’s at the top of the page. You can see it’s honestly not that many posts, but like there’s some really good ones.

Emma: There’s some good ones. There’s like little decor things wreathes and garland’s and things like that. 

Elsie: There’s a bunny wreath that’s really cute. So yeah, I think if you can decorate for Easter, you can decorate for anything. 

Emma: Yeah, I like making like some kind of seasonal cookie for any occasion. I just like having something to celebrate. So we have some cookie recipes, but even just making like the classic sugar cookies and decorating them like bunnies or carrots or eggs or whatever you want for spring or do you want them to be crosses or whatever? Whatever you want, man. Sugar Cookies are delicious. So holidays are a time make them in my opinion. 

Elsie: No, I think that’s a great idea. Okay, so the Easter tradition for our kids. So we already talked about baskets. It’s like kind of the main one but this year I am starting a new tradition. We’re going to host an Easter egg hunt. And I was like Jeremy can we host an Easter egg roll like the White House and he was like which White House. I was like the White House and he said which White House in our neighborhood. I said the house where Joe Biden lives. But I don’t think he knew about it. But the White House has like a, it’s like a children’s tradition of an Easter egg hunt in the front yard that’s like really, really elaborate. And it was like let’s like do a miniature version of that. And like you know, invite our friends, invite people in the neighborhood, maybe the kids classmates, and I also want to do like a brunch. So I think that’ll be really fun. I’m really looking forward to it. Something to like, kind of try to edge me into decorating for Easter. Because you know in my basement I have like three or four shelves Christmas, three or four shelves Halloween and if I could even have one, not a full shelf, but one like ledge that was all Easter that would be like a lot. 

Emma: I have one brown grocery bag of Easter stuff and it’s not even full all the way. 

Elsie: I feel like essentially haven’t started at all like I’m really averse about the color scheme and I just don’t know how to make it work for me but there has to be a way. 

Emma: Here’s what I think okay, you either go like more realistic colors like actual colors of eggs so like white and brown and then carrots like a Martha Stewart way. You go like spring, actual colors of nature, spring stuff, or you go the pastel route. Then you can do more cartoon bunnies and things like that.

Elsie: That’s a good idea. I think I’m definitely gonna go the first one. 

Emma: Because I think mixing the two is tough, because they don’t really make sense. It’s like, I don’t know, they just don’t go together. 

Elsie: I think I just like can’t do the like, cartoony part of it. 

Emma: Yeah, I understand to about the not pastels not being like the most exciting thing, but I will say ever since I got my colors done for like my personal style we did Created Colorful. We got our readings and I am a late Spring, early Spring. But I’m a pastel. Like lavenders kind of one of my number one colors for wearing. I just have a lot more clothes now that are honestly kind of Easter colors. And I never thought I would like those colors. But now that I have them more in my wardrobe and in my life I think of them differently. And I think once you start decorating it where you’re liking it, it becomes less cheesy. That’s a whole trick. 

Elsie: What do you think if it was like goth Easter? 

Emma: Yeah, goth Easter sounds fun to me. Yeah, I’ve done some like footprint handprint art with my kids for Easter like Easter bunnies and different you know, things like that. I think those are really fun, too. 

Elsie: Yeah, that’s a good idea.  I think maybe I could lean in on the kids craft or I could lean in on like, the more non commercial Easter stuff. Yeah, maybe I don’t know. Well, I’m gonna figure this out because I have like two weeks notice. And it is happening. But yeah, I’m excited to host something and I don’t know it is inspired by the White House. But I’m also joking. 

Emma: I think hosting an Easter egg con is not like a crazy only the White House does it thing.  Yeah, I think it’s fun. 

Elsie: It’s just like the only thing I know of that’s not a church thing that is like a big Easter thing. I think that it’s coming through that I’m clueless about Easter. So if anyone has suggestions, it’s a little late now, but send them to me anyways. I just want to know. Yeah, I think I do want to have like a little bit of decor and a little bit of a commitment because it’s fun for kids. And it is like one of the only holidays this time of year so might as well optimize that. 

Emma: Now that I know you’re hosting like a brunch with it, I now have excuse to buy one of those deviled egg plates, which I’ve been putting off because I don’t make deviled eggs that often. So now I’m definitely gonna buy one of those plates because it’ll just make it easier to travel.

Elsie: I’m gonna try to make the jello shots. They are so much work, but like, they’re probably not. I don’t know. I’ve never made jello shots before. Are they though? Are they a lot of work? 

Emma: I can’t remember if she did a cookie cutter or a mold with them. The cookie cutters are a little harder. 

Elsie: They look like molds to me. 

Emma: Mold is way easy. Okay, you can do it.  Never compare yourself to Laura though. She is perfect. Just do your best. 

Elsie: She’s so talented.  Okay. Well, it’s an exciting time to try something new. And I’m just like praying. It’s a very Easter thing to say.  I’m just like, hoping and manifesting that my flowers will bloom. Will they bloom? Will they? Will they? Will they? Will they? Will they?I hope so. 

Emma: Okay, the only other tradition with kids that I wanted to mention was, so we do seasonal books for every season. So I do like pulling out our like Spring and Easter theme books around this time of year. Just to have something new to read at bedtime. And we also read them other times the day anytime Oscar wants to read a book, we read a book, but we always read books at bedtime. And so it’s kind of fun. We have a few that are like about a dog finding easter eggs. I can’t remember them all off the top of my head, but they’re really cute and it’s fun. And none of ours are religious. But I just think it’s fun to have something new to read and think about the seasons and talk about the seasons. We have all four seasons here. So Oscar having like stuff about that, I think is really fun. 

Elsie: Yes, we have a whole post about children’s Easter books on Childhood Magic, so we can link that in the show notes if you’re interested in any. It’s cute. 

Emma: Okay, next up, very important, what is your favorite Easter candy for yourself? 

Elsie: Okay. For me, it’s like the same answer on every holiday but like the Reese’s seasonal like the little shaped one so I think they’re an egg for Easter. What are they at Christmas? A tree. Then at Halloween, a pumpkin. 

Emma: They do a football around Super Bowl time too.

Elsie: That is like my favorite kind of Reese’s period. Like I just think it’s like the most proportionally peanut buttery one. So that’s my favorite. 

Emma: I personally love Cadbury mini eggs. It’s a hard shell on the outside.

Elsie: We were eating those in bed last weekend. 

Emma: Yeah, we were and milk chocolate on the inside. And I’m normally not a big milk chocolate person. I’m not against it. I just tend to buy more dark chocolate if I’m eating chocolate, even baking, usually use dark chocolate. But there’s something about the Cadbury mini eggs. I love them. Once they’re out for Easter. I’m like always buy a bag. They’re just a little bit like better than M&Ms to me but similar. And they’re bigger. They’re bigger than an M&M too.

Elsie: Unless it’s peanut butter M&Ms. 

Emma: Oh yeah. Peanut butter. That’s all year round. So that’s not an Easter candy. 

Elsie: Yeah. I think that Easter candy is really cute though. And I’m excited to go to the store and buy like a billion eggs and fill them all up. So that’ll be fun. How do you decorate for Easter? Okay. I feel like I already said this. I’m scared of Easter. 

Emma: I have like a garland. And yeah, I did a little wooden a egg that Oscar did a footprint on. But I don’t really know what to do with it. I just kind of was like, oh, you know, so. I’m in the same boat. We don’t really have a whole lot of stuff. I would like to get a wreath for our door. 

Elsie: I’m gonna start it. Like I’m gonna start it. I’m gonna give it a try. Because I can just think of it as generally Spring two. And I don’t have a lot of that either. So I’m gonna give it a try. 

Emma: I think just making it spring. So it’s like, for Halloween, there’s a lot of stuff that’s just fall. It’s not even really Halloween. It’s just fall. So I think like doing Easter ias like it’s just Spring. I think make sense. Like do that. Kind of the same just without the pumpkins. Carrots instead of pumpkins.  

Elsie: I mean, I’m gonna make it work and make a little bit of decor. I think it will be fun. But I don’t know. I have no clue what to do. And we’ll have to get back on that part. I’m scared. I’m terrified. Well check back with us next year. We’re going to be Easter pros. We’re going to figure out this.

Emma: I’m excited for the Easter egg hunt. I think it’s gonna be really fun. 

Elsie: I’m excited too. 

Emma: Okay, next up, we’re doing guilty pleasure treasure.

Elsie: Guilty pleasure treasure! 

Emma: So mine is like a pair of shoes that I don’t really feel guilty about buying but I bought them like so fast from an Instagram ad. So that’s why like they fit into the guilty pleasure treasure category. Okay, so at the moment, I’m not buying a lot of clothes in life because I’m pregnant and nothing really fits. And I don’t really like to buy a ton of maternity clothes. It just feels kind of wasteful. So I kind of just make some of the clothes that I have. 

Elsie: What she means she doesn’t buy any maternity clothes though. 

Emma: I bought any a couple pairs of thrifted maternity jeans. And they work great because jeans are so different for maternity because they have the big belly band. It’s like they just come in like small, medium large or something. It’s like so different from regular jeans. Anyway, I’ve thrifted a few things and I’ve borrowed a few things from friends and I have some clothes that are kind of like bigger dresses that just keep fitting. I’ve stuff like that. But I also am kind of fine just wearing the same six outfits for a few months, because it just doesn’t feel worth it for me. Some people are different, that’s great, but I just don’t really care. So there you go. So anyway, but I was like, I could buy shoes because I definitely would like a few new pairs of summer sandals. Because I just don’t have a ton and also every summer I get that pretty embarrassing Birkenstock tan line because I wear the two strap Birkenstocks and I’ve gotten tons of walks in the Spring and Summer, I mean all year round, but I get kind of the tan line then. Sometimes gets so bad it feels like it last all year long. My Birkenstock tan line. So I was like alright, you need a few other different styles of sandals so that you can switch out the sandals and not get the same tan line. That’s good. So anyway, Instagram ads totally got me because I think it knew I was shopping for shoes because I was looking at different shoe sizes and so I think kind of knew I had my number. So I’m not 100% how to pronounce this brand but I think it’s Dolce Vita and they had the sandals that are kind of like the the strap style of like Tivas if you know what I’m talking about. They’re kind of like water shoes or like hiking shoes. But these are like, they’re just that strap style because Maidwell did this a few years ago too where it’s like it’s the strap style, but like the shape of it, but then they do it in like leather. So you can wear it with anything really. It’s like a more dressy version of an athletic wear. You know, like if you have ever seen tennis shoes, but they have a lot of glitter on them. And you’re like, you don’t really run in those, but you do wear them with your cool jeans out to buy groceries. I don’t know, whatever. So yeah, so they’re that kind of style, but it’s like tan leather that’s braided. So it’s braided straps. And the closure part is velcro, I believe which I kind of dig because part of the summer I’m going to barely be able to put on my shoes, so I probably should only wear slides. But I just wanted a pair that’s like easy to put on. you get where you can’t really reach your feet at the very end of the pregnancy. Someone helped me with my shoes. I can’t tie them. So anyway, I feel like they’re like $70 and they look like nice quality. They haven’t come in the mail yet. So I don’t really feel guilty about any of that. I just like bought them so fast when I saw them on Instagram, an Instagram ad because I was like that’s what I’m looking for.  

Elsie: Cute. Okay, I’m gonna do shoes too then because we’re on a shoe theme. So I am obsessed with the ballet flats trend. I’m really into it. I think that you know how sometimes it’s like a trend and you feel like it was like made for you. That’s how I feel about this one. But it just like makes so many options available all of a sudden. So yeah, it was like wearing them with yoga pants last weekend. Oh, like do whatever. But yeah, I got like a bunch of pairs of those. And they’re like a real high low, which is cool. I think the most inexpensive ones I have are from Urban Outfitters. I’ll link them if they’re still there. I got them a while ago. And then the more pricier ones that I got. They’re still not crazy. But they were Sam Edelman. And there’s like a bunch of good ones on there. So yeah, I think I’m really into that for Spring. Spring clothes are hard for me. I’m a fall like color type. And I’m also like a fall person in my soul and my core.  My mom used to take us shopping for like an Easter outfit, which is so fun. But like now I like feel traumatized when I like look at the racks of like pastel dresses, because I would like seriously put them on and it’s like I’ve never looked uglier in my life than when I put on spring clothes. It’s always been that way and I never knew why now I understand it a little bit more. So yeah, so this year, I’m buying Spring clothes, but they’re still like my colors like maroon and dark brown. Sundresses but they’re still my colors. So I think that it’s working too. I feel like a lot better. Like I get it. Actually let’s do an episode soon about the Created Colorful thing.

Emma: I feel like we have sold it to so many of our friends because we don’t shut up about it anytime we’re out shopping. 

Elsie: I’ll put the code in to this show notes. And I think we should do an episode about it because now we have like experience. Like if we talked about it when we first got the results like a year ago. I feel like that’s different from like now. Like I feel like it was life changing. Like really, really really worht it.  So anyway, goth Easter, and that is with ballet flats. That’s the thing. 

Emma: I love it. 

Elsie: Oh god okay, but yeah, I do think that like, when you find a trend that you like, and you can buy like it in every color, there’s like nothing better. It’s like the world catered to me for once right? 

Emma: I agree. Yeah, I do. And I also catch myself as I was buying my sandals, I kept like picking out sandals that I then would go to my closet and I was like you literally already own that. Like I think I’m kind of like a person who will very easily buy the same thing and not realize it if I haven’t worn it in a minute. I haven’t been wearing sandals because it’s been wintertime. i’m just pulling them out now so I’m like you know, I’m like oh don’t buy those you literally already have a pair very similar. What is wrong with you? So it took me a minute to be like what’s the thing you’re missing? And I like okay I need something that’s like kind of more of a tan color like for me kind of a flesh color. Anyway and I needed a strap that’s different from Birkenstock because that’s part of my problem is the tan lines. 

Elsie: I’m banishing myself from Birkenstocks this Summer because I just like wear them only for the entire summer so I’m just going to like actually throw them away. 

Emma: It’s easy to do. 

Elsie: Thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful Easter and we will be back next week with the comfort rewatch of Ever After. Oh my god. Okay, see you next week.