Nostalgic Holidays

article by Cindy G. Foust

Well, here we all are readers, on the cusp of the great holiday… April Fools’ Day. Question is does anyone really observe April Fools’ Day anymore? I never hear anyone talk about a great joke they played, so I guess it’s kind of one of those holidays that has just lost its luster.

But there was this one time, when Scott and I first got married, that I changed out the sugar in the sugar bowl he used for coffee and filled it up with salt, and that went over really well. Then another time on April Fools’, me and my two sisters (it always sounds better to have a “team” of culprits) put a plastic spider on the handle of the mailbox, you know, to play a simple prank on the mail carrier. Well, I don’t think she really observed this holiday either, because she wrote a sort of ugly note to my parents and said she was deathly afraid of spiders and she was sick with panic and fear when she pulled up to our mailbox and it made her almost quit her job. That was kind of terrible. Oh, and we sort of got in trouble. I’ve just never really had good luck trying to observe this specific holiday, and my memories, well, they are kind of bad, so I just let this day come and go without much fanfare.

But Easter on the other hand, another holiday on the calendar for this month, now I could fill the pages of this magazine with my Easter memories. I usually promise our readers that I will write my “next month’s column” on something really exciting like cool ideas for dying your eggs. But I kind of lied, because I don’t really think anyone wants to read about how to Tye-Dye your eggs or how to dye them “economically” by submerging them in coffee. What in the world? How about just using some (stinky) vinegar and a few PAAS tablets or some food color like normal Easteronians? Oh the memories that last sentence conjures up for me. Let me be clear, for those that need to be brought up to speed with my column… we are a holiday family, rich with traditions, so if I let my mind just wander a bit, I can get nostalgic on you pretty quick. 

In my family, Easter was no different than the other holidays, and traditions have always been strict, like having the Easter Egg Hunt at my grandmother’s house. For years, we dyed eggs after lunch, and the older family members hid them, probably several times before the day was over. As everyone sat around peeling eggs and salting them before we ate them (quite frankly, that memory kind of grosses me out now, but then it was ritual and we didn’t deviate from ritual), the little ones (or me when I was little) would walk around and crack eggs (boiled of course) on everyone’s heads. Ah yes, precious memories…how they linger. 

As time quickly passed, as it always does, us “littles” began hiding them for the younger kids. But if I wanted to give you one of my top “five” favorite holiday memories it would have to be the year me and my two sisters were getting ready to hide the eggs, and my late sister, Angel, disappeared on us. We waited and waited and waited… and we finally decided to just start hiding the eggs, because the younger kids were screaming. 

Off we went, ready to play the Easter Bunny, getting the 500 eggs hid, and still no Angel. Where in the world? Somebody finally let the little ones out and we are all in the front yard watching the craziness that ensues, when suddenly, without warning, we look down the hill and we see this 6’2 Easter bunny hopping down the “bunny trail.” Except it wasn’t just any Easter bunny, it was the “Michael Jackson” Easter bunny. You heard me right, Angel had snuck home (my parent’s lived right next door to my grandparents), and dressed up like her then idol, Michael Jackson (readers, don’t judge, we probably all agree he had a very strange and quacky lifestyle, but most of us have loved us some Billie Jean or some Thriller, right?) Yes, Angel hopped right through the yard, in her homemade costume, complete with sequined glove and high topped Converse, and moonwalked her way into my top five holiday memories. Those were the days.

Fast forward in the time machine with me and I find myself writing about my memories for my readers, and wondering, what are some of yours? Does your family have traditions and rituals that you do every year? You can’t read my column and not know that I am going to always share some my Edith Bunker stories with my readers, and most of the time, in every column, there will be some sort of anecdote to remind us how important our memories are. And for me, holidays give us opportunities to start new traditions, or participate and enhance old ones. 

We lost my grandmother, Bitsy, 7 years ago, and some of our rich Easter traditions have changed and look a little different, but have they really? I mean, the most important thing is that we are all still together, eating good food, dying eggs and still hiding eggs. I’ve been doing some reflecting these past few days, which never bodes well for my readers, but the reflection comes from some rather anxious weeks I have lived through.

Oh, I’m totally fine, friends, I just got back from Houston and had an “all clear, doing great, go live your life” visit. On our drive home, the gratitude I felt was so heavy I rode most of the way home in tears. I’ve written before in previous columns about the humble experience of visiting a hospital like MD Anderson. I texted one of my good friends, Heather, after I left, and told her that the one thing spending a few days there will do, is remind you to be grateful for the able bodied healthy person you are. Even if you have to go for a routine check-up.

This mindset is sending me all which of ways in my feelings (I am fairly confident that last sentence is a grammatical nightmare, but it’s how I’m feeling, readers), especially when my gratitude mindset meets my nostalgic memory mindset. As I sit in my big comfy chair this morning, enjoying the quiet of this space, I think about how things have really changed in my life, over the past 5 years. 

The loss of family and friends, a pandemic, a breast cancer “episode,” all of which are heavy and let’s just say it, hard. It’s easy to get in the lane of focusing on all that hard stuff and letting it control our focus. I am definitely sitting here with my hand raised high in the sky because that has been me. I think we also lose sight of the fact that our “littles” even if they are “biggles” (I totally made that word up but I’m loving the way it works in this column) are feeding off what they are seeing and feeling from us. Can anyone else raise their hand to that, as well?

My children are grown (24) and nearly grown (16) and they sense everything I feel. No matter their age, our children want to see us happy, healthy and positive, and as hard as it is sometimes to stay that way all the time, it’s important I think for them to see us at least trying. Right? Life is a gift and as cliché as it sounds, we should be soaking it all in… squeezing the life out of every second we are privileged to have. Rather than sitting in that lane with all the heavy, we should be focusing on the all the positive things in our life… a clean bill a health, a job we love, friends we adore, family you are fortunate to have. 

If anyone else finds themselves in the “dredge” with me let’s start with the upcoming holidays and show that dredge the door. Instead of Elvis, I’ve even been thinking of dressing up like Dolly Parton and singing Islands in the Stream for our biggles. That’s a joke, heck, my kids probably don’t even know who the Dolly Parton is! And since our littles are biggles now, instead of hiding eggs, I might just organize a Scavenger Hunt (this will probably go over great with my husband when the kids are running through our flower beds, but he didn’t divorce me over the salt in the sugar bowl, so maybe my marriage will remain intact after this, too.)

Let’s go readers, take a little time and create some special plans, or work at strengthening the traditions you already have in place. Heck, even consider asking your kids what they want to do. Just shuck the dredge and move your families into a dredgless (another made up word) wonderful, memory filled season. My hope is that it will be filled with wonderful, quality time with your family, good food, great old (or new) traditions and maybe even a few Cadbury eggs.

Cindy G. Foust is a wife, mom, author and blogger. You can find her blog at the alphabetmom.com for weekly columns about home life,  parenting, small business stories and insight with a smidgen of literacy. Give her a like or follow on Facebook and Instagram.