Our First Ukrainian Easter

Hello all! This is my very late Easter post! Well, it is not as late, since Easter here was celebrated a week after Easter in the U.S. This is because Orthodox Easter is celebrated here, which is a different date than the Catholic Easter (which is the date we use in the U.S.) because the Orthodox celebrate the date based on the old Julian calendar. Anyway, this is just half of Easter, because the other half (Easter egg hunting) took place just last week on our team retreat. 

Easter Sunday, we had church at Liv and Dave's. They made a scrumptious meal of brisquet, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and rolls. Truely a feast! We actually ate first this Sunday. After our worship time and the boys' naps, Liv and Dave had a day of fun planned. The night before they had boiled 3 cartons of eggs (cartons here come in sets of 10 eggs each). What good planners! So, Sunday afternoon, the kids first got naked! We decided that would be the best idea for handling Easter egg dye! Then each kid and adult (except Max) got to color an egg or two with crayons. Then, we mixed up 5 different colors of egg dye and dyed the eggs. They turned out really cute! For the second activity, we put slips of egg decoration on the eggs. Once on the egg, the egg is place in almost boiling water for 5 seconds, where the decoration acts like shrink wrap and molds to the form of the egg. It was really cool. So, we all got to pick various patterns and pictures for our eggs. Some were traditional Ukrainian decorations and some were cartoon stories. Canaan chose the cartoon picture of the Enormous Turnip. We have this book and he recognized the picture immediately and wanted that one for his egg. You should here him tell the story, it is really cute. Anyway, we all got to "shrink wrap" some other eggs. At the end of the day, each family got to take home about 8 eggs a peice. We still have ours out for decoration. They turned out so cute. 

After our egg fun, Liv and Dave gave the boys little Easter gifts. Each family got a little Easter box with various gifts for each boy: from a little stuffed animal bull for Max (it is the year of the Bull and there are tons of bull knick-knacks around here), to motorcycle stickers for the 2 big boys (those were a big hit), toy cars, glow in the dark stars, and balloons. The boxes were cool, filled with special little gifts for the boys. They even came complete with home-made Easter grass that Liv made! Next, Liv gifted Denyce and I with kitchen towels, which are always nice to have extras of! 

Last, but not least, we got to eat a traditional Easter cake. It is a special type of cake that is only made on Easter here. It is not very sweet, just a little sweet. These breads are traditionally taken, along with decorated eggs, to the Orthodox church on either Saturday or Sunday to be blessed by the priests. Actually, when Canaan, Max and I had gone to the park the day before, we had seen many people (mainly women and children) taking thier eggs and bread/cake to the church to be blessed. Some even had champagne bottles and candles in their cakes. Very interesting. 

Overall, it was a very fun Easter for us all! A huge thank you to Liv and Dave for all the hard work and gifts and fun they had prepared for us this year! We loved it!