Oh yes and our new Easter dress and hat. Mom would usually make my dress she made a lot of my clothing when I was young.

I remember getting a new church dress, hat, shoes and a spring short coat for Easter in the years when I was still growing. The Easter church dress was our spring and summer church dress, ditto the shoes and hat. Mom especially liked to buy dotted swiss dresses for us. I don't remember any corsages. Dad always commented that he'd gotten his shoelaces pressed for Easter.

Always a new dress and bonnet, and my father would get corsages for my mother and me. Probably no one does that anymore.

Easter was when we changed from our "good" shoes (black patent leather) to white leather sandals for church. White socks were worn, not tights, with a frilly ruffle if you were lucky.

I remember making our then 3-year old daughter a structured and fully-lined spring coat and matching beret (also lined) to wear to church, along with a new dress that matched the coat lining. Easter was in March that year and it was still cold. Goodness, I haven't thought of that for years.... :-)

For sure a new dress and HATS!! white gloves, purse all the things as a little girl I never would have bothered with. Easter egg hunt with REAL hard boiled eggs--using mom's pots to collect them in as we ran around the yard. Sadly the one Easter that sticks out the most was choosing a pale yellow, lacy dress from JCP catalog and a substitute came. Pink Gingham. I am a red head. I don't do pink, even as a child. There was no time in those days to "exchange" ya took what they sent. I was devastated. Today the only tradition that survives is Good Friday coloring eggs. This year we will attempt the silk tie method.

My brother and I purchased a corsage for our mother at the local florist. A new outfit- a suit or dress and coat- always a new hat and new shoes. Dinner with the family and a visit to the Botanical Gardens. We always colored eggs.

Used to, you would see corsages in the floral section of grocery stores. Don't know if they still have them. Back in my youth, there weren't floral sections in stores.

Always a new dress, hat and shoes. We would always go to a local pancake house after church Easter Sunday......always crowded with a wait but everyone in a good mood and dressed in their finest. When we got too old for individual baskets mom would put a large platter with grass and all sorts of candies that we would all nibble on for a week or so.

That's lovely, Glenda....never a corsage for me, but always a new Easter outfit.

Oh, yes. As a small child, I always had a new dress for church and typically a hat with a "tail" - whatever that's called. And my brothers would wear suits to church on Easter. We'd all be dressed up and there would be a family photo (or several) in the yard before going to church. Blossoming trees (cherry, crab apple, etc.) in the background.

When we first got up in the morning we would all have a little gathering of easter eggs (jelly beans, candy-covered malted milk balls, etc.) ready for us and then there would be the easter egg hunt. My brothers always got more because they were older. But they were good and shared with me.

I was baptized on Easter night - I think I was 14.

Lovely memories.

Oh, yes! That, and a new dress, hat and even gloves.

I have a cherished photo of Mom and I posing in our Peeps-chic yellow Easter outfits!

We also got our food blessed and played epper with our eggs.

Awww, dedtired!

Oh my...what memories.. We were so "prim and proper" back then. Now people wear jeans or shorts to church.....how times change.

mare- I love how your purse matched your corsage.

Dotted Swiss! I had forgotten about it. My mother had a fur stole like the one pictured aboveOn one end was the fox face with glass eyes that had a mouth that opened and clamped down on the tail on the other end! Yes...lots of memories.

Some of us, save that corsage for Mother's Day, white or red, depending on whatever is appropriate. Some traditions live on. It's not an exclusive club, based upon age. Traditions are like that. Hats, new shoes, etc, even. I'm perplexed at the objective of exclusivity?

Hope you enjoyed your Good Friday, Passover, Easter, our even a simple observance of the Equinox with our without flowers. Love for all!

Even shade, my great aunt also had one of those fox stoles with the clamp mouth. I was fascinated with that thing. I wonder what ever became of it. Mare you look so sweet.

Never had corsages but every Easter my mom either made or bought me a new dress. I also got new shoes, tights, purse, bonnet, etc to go with it.

It tapered off in my high school years but when I had my first baby, she renewed with fervor, lavishing her grand babies with new outfits every spring.

A few years ago she told me there was no point if I wasn't going to take them to church so she quit.

That stung a bit for me but thankfully my girls were young enough to not notice and I still make a point of celebrating spring with them.

No corsage tradition, but always a new dress and shoes. Usually I got a new frilly petticoat and white socks. Sometimes a new hat and gloves were needed.

Oh yes, the Easter finery! Mother was quite a seamstress, was very talented at that art. She not only made many of my clothes, but also shirts, jackets, and ties for my three brothers. I recall hats on Easter, that's for sure.

Dad would hide our baskets, make jellybean trails throughout the house starting from our bedrooms, he helped with coloring of hardboiled eggs, most of which would end up pickled with beets. Loved those. I always make a batch for us, Robert's employees, and neighbors this time of year.

rob333, yes, corsages for Mother's Day as well. It's always been a tradition in my family. Mother's Day, the red or white roses, to honor our mother's.

I don't think that I got a corsage for every Easter, but I'm glad that this one occasion was captured for posterity. I treasure the photos I have with my Mom. She was a great lady who loved clothes and especially hats.

Many families have traditional Easter baked items. Our family didn't, but we had a friend who always brought us a lamb shaped cake that was baked in a two-piece mold. It was covered in seven minute icing with coconut on it.

I love the photos. Mare - I note with interest that the lower part of your mother's jacket was a peplum. I think peplums are so attractive and they're currently in fashion again.

A lamb cake was a tradition in my house--I thought of it as a Czech tradition, but I could be wrong. We especially loved years when we got to make "black sheep" with devil's food chocolate cake and chocolate icing! The plate was decorated with jelly beans and that fake grass stuff put in Easter baskets.

Somehow, thinking of my family's Easter traditions, I feel rather sad. I guess so many of them have gone by the wayside these days. My dd and I go to Mass in morning, which is always nice. As a kid I always either wanted to give my mom a corsage (too expensive!) or be given one myself. :)

Those pictures look so familiar to me. I wish I could post some of mine but my new computer doesn't like my old scanner and I haven't shopped yet for another.

I sewed many, many outfits for our 4 daughters. Looking back I wonder how I did it all, but would do it all over again happily.

Happy Easter to all.

Here's a pretty lamb cake. I still have the mold.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/4714774584205637/

seniorgal, can't you transfer your pictures from your old computer to your new one? I hope you didn't have a total meltdown of your old one.

Since I grew up in the 1940ties-50ties, I remember the "Easter Parade" type activities. One thing I vividly remember is that the Catholic families in our neighborhood used to get palm fronds (something like that) for Palm Sunday, and they all seemed to place them in back of calendars (usually from some local funeral home) as "décor" I guess. Come summer, lots were left up to brown. Always thought that odd.

Kathy, all practicing Catholics put up new palms on Palm Sunday, usually behind a crucifix, and leave them there until the next year's Palm Sunday. I still put them in my kids' rooms too, even though they don't live here anymore.

Putting a palm behind a calendar would be a tad odd! I have always put mine behind the crucifix on the wall. They do dry out. We never kept ours for a full year but burnt them, usually, sometime in the summer. As children we would sometimes also braid several together into a cross. Palms are a sign of victory. A lovely tradition.

What a fun thread!

Mom would yank us indoors on Good Friday to say the rosary from noon until three o'clock. That evening, we colored eggs. Sunday morning, we'd scramble out to our Easter baskets to see what the Easter bunny brought us. We each would receive a chocolate, hollow bunny with the candy eyes, jelly beans, chocolate coated marshmallow bunnies, chocolate foil wrapped eggs, and a small gift- a wrist watch or some such thing.

Then we'd dress up in our new dresses, white gloves and each in a new hat- then, off to mass we went. Man, I hated mass.

My dad wasn't a part of these things...he was Lutheran and never went to church at all. Lucky dog. My mom referred to him as a "Heathen".

We had all of the above and corsages and then went to Boston to see the Easter parade. My favorite part of Easter was having a purse, I glowed. We then went to my grandmother's home for an egg hunt with all the children. She had 11 children and 28 grandchildren. She had a photographer come and take group photos. It was more than wonderful.

As to the pictures, mare_wbpa----unfortunately they are not on my computer at all. There is a calendar that my three younger daughters made for their sister's 60th birthday. I found it recently at the bottom of a drawer One of the pictures shows three "big" girls and the youngest one, who was seven years younger than her next older sister. They are dressed in their Easter finery with the tiny one wearing hers, too. So, so, many memories there.

Seniorgal, sometimes I take a picture of a picture rather than scanning. The quality is not as good but it is a lot faster. I use my ipad. Hope you are having a wonderful Easter Sunday and enjoying the memories from the past.

Senior gal, get those pics on your computer anyway you can, scanned or pic of pic. When you get them on, back them up with a flash drive, external hard drive, or cloud. You'll never regret having them in digital form.Now that moat of my old pics are scanned into the computer I look at them much more than if they were in hard copy only.

Growing up, we did not go to church, so there were no new clothes, no flowers, we did hunt for eggs our Mother had colored while we were asleep and an Easter basket we used each year.

Sue

We were very short of money and did not celebrate very much at all. But I remember being in New York City (I still live very close by, in Suffolk County, Long Island) and visiting the Loft's Candy Shop to see the beautiful, big chocolate bunny they always had on display for Easter. I know it was prohibitively expensive but so nice to look at!

junebug1961

What a fun thread!

Mom would yank us indoors on Good Friday to say the rosary from noon until three o'clock.

*****

We weren't allowed to play or watch tv. All electronics off from 12-3.