Pasxa for five

Everyone who knows me even a little, know that I LOVE Greek Easter. I would go so far as to say it is my favorite holiday! Some (even Randy) may think Christmas is my favorite, but it is Greek Easter. It is a day to celebrate family, welcome spring and have a big old lamb dinner with all of my friends and family. My family used to have a big dinner with lots of friends every Easter and it was always a happy holiday. The weather was getting warm so the kids could all play outside. My dad would get a big whole lamb from somewhere in Brooklyn and he and his friends would sit outside while it roasted on the spit. There was chocolate and candles and I loved it.

We usually invite 30-40 people and have a big old Greek dinner. This year because of Covid we only had 20 people. I kid people…we had…just the Alis. At first I was worried about making it special, but I shouldn’t have worried! We have enough kids to make it a party any day, we cook pretty darn well and I love making everyone get everyone dressed up.

We dyed eggs using food dye, since we couldn’t order egg dye from the US (mail was stopped for us due to Covid), we got dressed up and had a special Easter dinner just for us. It was so much fun that a new Ali Covid tradition was born. Party Sundays with a big dinner and fancy dress up in the Ali home! Try it! Getting dressed up makes you feel differently. Throwing a tablecloth on and lighting candles makes it feel special. Telling the kids we are having a party makes them look forward to the weekend even though we are still in the same house that we spend all week in. Put up some decorations and they go wild!

For our first ever Alis only Greek Easter, we started with egg dying of all sorts. We boiled and dyed eggs with food coloring and we also blew out the inside of eggs (man oh man, that was an exercise in lung strength) and painted them with paint.

Because we were using food dye I was worried about ruining furniture, clothes and having colored hands for weeks. So I broke out all the precautions. Luckily I had lots of extra gloves in the house, thanks Covid and a balcony to get messy on.

Next up was painting empty egg shells. Something that I used to love doing as a child. These are not egg shells, but the closest I have to simulate

the experience. So squint a bit and pretend these are eggs!

Thank goodness for supermarket chocolate, my hording of toys in the closet and local delivery that made these baskets possible.

Then it was on to the egg hunt!

And Easter basket opening joy.

And because it was Covid and we were still stuck inside most of the time, this air hockey was left by a very kind Ukrainian Easter Bunny. I would just kindly ask him to put it together himself next time as I was up pretty late Easter eve screwing the legs onto this bad boy….

Then we had a special breakfast of waffles and whipped cream, an Ali child favorite!

The face of an 8 year old who is told that is enough whipped cream.

The face of a child when he realizes there is caramel sauce as a special Easter treat.

For our dinner we started with some charcuterie and a bottle of sparkling wine from a super cute vineyard Randy and I went to when we were in Virginia, that we save for special occasions.