Easter in the time of Covid19

Easter was different this year. Now, it would have been different regardless of the pandemic going on as the majority of our kids were at their other parents' homes, so we had our Easter meal and the kids found their baskets of candy on Palm Sunday.

Easter 2020 was a virtual experience, of course, as everyone is supposed to be Sheltered at Home. We didn't get on in time to do "live church," but we watched some Easter services. Parts of four of them. It is kind of fun to see parts of other services--especially where friends are involved.

But it's very different not being around a church family on Easter morning.

When I was growing up Holy Week was a big deal. Albert City, Iowa, was the home of just under 1000 people back then. There were three churches in town--Evangelical Covenant, Evangelical Free, and Evangelical Lutheran (and a couple more Lutheran churches in the country). During Holy Week the churches would work together for a variety of programs. They would take turns hosting a special speaker (often someone from the church's seminary) who would speak a couple evenings during the beginning of the week. There would be a men's prayer breakfast and a women's tea. Each church typically did their own thing for Maunday Thursday/Good Friday (I honestly don't remember well if we did things both evenings or not). On Sunday morning--early at 7am--the youth from the three churches would put on a Sunrise Service (again, rotating which church hosted and led the service; the churches not leading the service usually provided a musical selection). My senior year we had a trumpet player from each church, so myself and two girls were in the balcony of the Lutheran church playing trumpet along with some of the hymns (like perenniel favorite Up From the Grave He Arose). After the service there would be a brunch--typically an egg bake and cinnamon rolls would make an appearance. Then we'd have a short respite before going to our own church's regular services. Extended family would be home for the holilday there would be a bunch of second and third cousins in church. We usually would have Easter Dinner at my grandparents' or an uncle's home (sometimes our own). My mom usually made a three-dimensional rabbit cake with green-dyed coconut "grass". We'd have an Easter Egg hunt outside with dyed hard-boiled eggs. Earlier in the morning (between the two church services, I believe, we'd run back home to hunt for our hidden basket and hidden candy eggs around the living room--usually foil-wrapped little cocolate eggs and some malted-milk ball eggs).

I do remember some egg hunts outside in the snow, but that was a rarity. Yesterday we had several inches of snow which felt cruel after the previous day's 60 degree temperature where we were hiking ouside. A church friend from my wife's Bible study group drown through the snow to deliver a hyacinth. We could only wave from our window.