Easter Cady Style

Easter Eggs Crazy Cady Sister Style

Easter has come and gone, but some of my favorite childhood memories will linger in my mind forever. One of those memories, is that of Easter. Well, okay. To be fair, any holiday that involved candy was my favorite. But that's for another time.

Dad and Mom had a way of making holidays magical. Easter was at the top of the list.  Mom would usually purchase ten dozen eggs. We would wait with agonizing patience as she filled the giant stock pot to the rim with eggs and water, letting it boil until the water was frothy from the few eggs that broke during the process. Next, we'd have to wait. I know, right?! What cruel creation of earth would make her children WAIT for the eggs to cool! Occasionally, she'd give up and let us take the pot to the newspaper-covered table and watch with satisfaction as we played hot-potato with each egg, tossing it from hand to hand, yelling "Ow ow ow hot hot hot!!" our voices increasing in pitch and terror until we finally dropped the egg on the table with a 'crack!'

When we returned to the table several hours later, when Mom deemed the eggs cool enough to handle, we'd write secret messages on the shells with white crayon, and then watch the messages appear during the dying process.

Easter 2017

There always seemed to be a contest to see who could make the darkest, most brilliant egg - which was quite the feat when there were ten dozen eggs to be dyed. Who could afford to monopolize a single color for extended periods of time? We had to sleep eventually. As the bottom three-quarters of the dye was being occupied by the 'pretty' eggs, the rest of us would give up and plop our eggs into top quarter, making do with the little bit of colored water we could claim.

On Easter Sunday, Dad (or whoever was too old to hunt) would hide the eggs and any candy purchased for the event.

Each of us, armed with a plastic bag, or pillowcase, would stand in the living room jumping up and down with anticipation, while Mom guarded the kitchen to make sure we (namely Matt) didn't peak through the windows and memorize the location of the eggs.

Finally, when we all thought we were going to die of old age, Dad would fling open the back door with a giant grin plastered on his face.  He'd fill the doorway and remind the older kids that the youngers got dibs anything in plain site.  Sometimes, if he was feeling gracious, he'd give the youngers a small head start; usually about a minute or so - just long enough for us to get down the rickety wooden stairs before Matt and Burt would come barreling down the stairs, plowing over anything in their way.

With an eye single to collecting as much free candy as possible, Matt would sprint from hiding place to hiding place, scooping up eggs and candy, elbowing any unsuspecting sibling out of his way.  This would usually be accompanied by Mom hollering, "Matt! Save some for your sisters!" Burt was usually a little more refined in his process. Unlike Matt, no children were usually harmed in his egg-searching process.

After weeks of anticipation, and hours of labor, the hunt usually lasted approximately three minutes and forty three seconds. Each of us would come running up  the stairs, our bags heavy with malted eggs, an assortment of marshmallow peeps, hard-boiled eggs, jelly beans, and, if we were lucky, something chocolate.

Then, for the next week, nearly every meal would consist of something hard-boiled. Deviled eggs, egg-salad sandwiches tinted to the color of the dyes used on the shells, salted hard-boiled eggs, more deviled eggs, and more egg-salad sandwiches. Hey! I didn't say Mom was creative; I just said she fed us eggs. Luckily, we only ate hard-boiled eggs once per year.  Because it would take us 11 1/2 months to prepare for the ritual the following year.

Inevitably, one or two hard-boiled eggs wouldn't be found during the hunt. Soon, they'd be forgotten, laying in wait like a ticking bomb. Then one day, when we least expected it, the dog would find a rotten egg, sending the children shrieking and gagging from the backyard, and leaving poor Rumbles quarantined to the backyard until the rancid stench wore off.