Columnists
Half past April
Sunday, April 17th. CBS Sunday Morning, coffee, chocolate eggies, laptop and a box of tissues!
Recently, LOML and I have referred to Sunday as the “Let’s hope we test negative day”. By nine this Easter Sunday morning we’ve chowed on a couple chocolate treats, a couple of mugs of coffee and a couple of slices of toast. Tonight we’ll be having a special dinner with my “I hope I test negative today, too” younger brother. LOML and I decided the three of us could have a “holiday” get-together and, if we are still testing positive, we’d keep this virus amongst us. So April 17th dinner it is with the three of us blowing our noses, singing, playing some music and eating the holiday feast we likely won’t be able to taste. We’ll celebrate this Easter Sunday, but not in the traditional sense of Easter. I think we three look at this weekend as the real beginning of spring. In spite of the still chill temperatures and the wisps of snow here and there, spring is springing. Maybe we’ll take advantage of the rest of the weekend to clean the yard, drink more coffee on the porch and eat more chocolate and breathe in the fresh air. Oh, and after all is said and done, there should be dinner leftovers. So there’s that to add to the weekend.
LOML and I had planned on a full-on family get together for this Easter weekend. The amount of food I picked up for Sunday’s dinner reflects our hopes for the gathering. It seems the moment we had all of our close family living in Ontario, the Pandemic hit and family get togethers became a logistical nightmare. Last year LOML, younger brother, and I celebrated Christmas on the twenty-fifth of December and, again, on the seventeenth of January when the Belleville kids were out of isolation. In the last two and half years we’ve celebrated holidays on the day of the event and around the time of the event and, more often than not, close to the month of those events. Our newest plan is to celebrate all of the holidays and celebrations (Christmas, Easter, Two-Four, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, July First, Labour Day, Thanksgiving and about twenty birthdays) on one weekend in July, or maybe August or September—but October is a possibility, too. At the very latest, we’ll have a big blowout in December.
Half of the fun of the We-Hope-It-Happens family gathering has been in the Zoom and Skype sessions where we plan for this monster event. We’ve all laughed about having a Christmas Tree decorated with Easter eggs, flags, flowers, shamrocks, Jack-o’-lanterns and birthday candles. We’ve giggled endlessly about party activities such as a tie-dye contest, bellyflop contest, scarecrow making, egg decorating and gingerbread house designing followed by a bonfire with s’mores and maybe a few sparklers, just for the heck of it. If the July- August-September-October family FunFest actually happens, we may have to get a special events permit for it.
I do hope you and yours met over this long weekend— one way or the other. I hope the Easter Bunny left lots of sweet treats (thank you to the Graham Bunnies) and the leftovers are as delicious as you’d hoped they’d be. Happy Half Past April. Wear your mask. Wash your hands, a lot. Eat your veggies and go for a stroll.
Negative, we are!
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