A Trip Down Memory Lane: Remembering the Sweet and Sour Easter Stories
This article originally written by Digital Content Intern Yusra Asif. Asif, is a senior media communications major at the University of Delaware, working as the associate news editor at The Review and a broadcast news reporter at the Student Television Network at UD.
Easter is defined as the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ with special church services and meals. It is, however, famous for a more secular celebration that involves Easter baskets filled with eggs and candy, delivered to children by their favorite — the Easter Bunny.
People who celebrate Easter usually have fond memories of the day, filled with sweet moments with their loved ones. Here we have a few Easter stories that will surely carve a smile on your face, whether you celebrate it or not. 2
“IT’S JESUS”
Danielle Mclltrot was all but a toddler, when she did something so unforgettable at the Saint Joseph Catholic Community Church, that it has become a profound memory of hers — she recalls that Easter Sunday at 21 years old.
“I was like three of four years old. It was Easter Sunday and everybody was in the church waiting for the priest to do his procession down the center of the aisle. (I am trying to explain my thought process as a three-year-old) So, in many of the depictions of Jesus, he is wearing white clothes or clothed in some sort of white garment. The priest that day was wearing white, and the celebration of Easter is celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. As the priest started walking down the center aisle, and everybody was watching him quietly, three-year-old me decided to stand up on the pew and yell “It’s Jesus.” My dad and my three sisters thought it was so funny that they started cracking up; they were laughing so hard, and my mom in that moment just didn’t think to get me to quiet down. Instead she picked me up and tried to correct me, and said, “No honey, that’s not Jesus, that’s the priest,” and I shouted again, “No, that’s Jesus,” and I started yelling and arguing with her that “It’s Jesus.” Eventually I calmed down. I was yelling in the church and arguing with my mother at three years old that the priest at my church was literally Jesus Christ himself.”
“PASSED OUT”
Stephanie Maria was 12 years old, when according to her grandmother she was “overcome by the Holy Spirit,” at a Catholic Easter mass.
“It was insufferably hot, and I was wearing this itchy dress that my mom forced me into. The Easter mass was so long and I got super overheated. I hadn’t drank water all day. After forty-five minutes into the sermon, I passed out. After I passed out, my family just laid me down in the pew, while my grandmother fanned me with her Bible. She likes to joke that I was overcome by the Holy Spirit. I was most definitely just dehydrated.”
“CONCUSSION”
Victoria Calvin was 10 or 11 years old when her Easter Sunday turned into a total disaster. She finds it difficult to remember the exact happenings of that day, not because it was so long ago, but because she got a concussion.
“The whole neighborhood was having an adults only Easter get together. One of the neighbors agreed to watch all the neighborhood kids at her house. So I was at this neighbors house and playing with her son and another boy, and they had these BMX bikes and a couple of dirt mounds in their backyard. So we were just riding over them and I don’t remember what happened but basically I wiped out and a metal piece on the bike somehow hit the back of my head, and the next thing I remember was sitting up on the ground with blood was streaming down my arm. Luckily the lady who was watching us was a nurse, so she was able to stop the bleeding and call my mom. I ended up getting three staples in my head. It took days for me to piece together the whole evening; I still don’t remember the actual accident but I had a concussion so that’s normal.”
“WILD ANIMAL IN THE HOUSE?”
Katie Garner, was so afraid of the Easter Bunny that she would sleep in her parents’ bedroom the night before Easter.
“I didn’t get why we were letting a wild animal into our house and eating the candy it left us. I was so afraid that we were just letting a wild animal roam into our house; I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just buy our own candy. [Recalling it now] But my sister and I would always wake up to an Easter egg hunt and notes from the Easter Bunny so it was actually very cute. I was just a super nervous kid, and if you think about it the holiday doesn’t make much sense. I was barely okay with Santa Claus breaking and entering, much less the Easter Bunny.”
“I HATE WHITE”
As a Ghanaian, Juanita Phillips celebrates Easter a little differently, but wearing white is still a part of it. She hates it!
“The way we celebrate Easter differs from the way most Americans celebrate it. We don’t do Easter breakfasts or find Easter eggs. But rather on Easter Sunday, believed to be the resurrection of Christ, we go to church. We usually have a communion and since it’s an African church that I go to, we have a jollof rice, chicken and drinks after service. We wear white to symbolize purity as it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ and him dying for our sins. I disliked wearing white, but was forced to wear it anyway, and I didn’t like being forced. Now, I am agnostic but I still go to church and participate in the religious activity out of respect, and sometimes because I am forced too [laughs].”
