Getting ready to dye Easter eggs!
Dying Easter eggs always makes me happy! This photograph shows my family with our traditional cups for dying the eggs. These were the chipped cups, that had some handles broken off, and were stained. This was my first Easter, so I must have been off taking a nap. My grandfather is looking down with love and fondness. Most likely my father took the picture.
About two weeks before Easter we would make sure we had enough white eggs to hard-boil. Everyone knew you couldn’t use real fresh eggs, or they would be hard to peel. We would make sure we had food dye, vinegar, and those magic wax crayons for putting our names on the eggs.
I remember a few times with my own children trying all natural products like yellow onion skins and beet juice to stain the eggs. We always went back to the food dye or the PAAS kits. At the PAAS website I was amazed to learn they started in Newark, New Jersey 130 years ago. I guess dying Easter eggs makes lots of folks happy!
Here’s another photo from the same year showing the eggs arranged at Easter. All of the food would have been blessed at our church the day before, including the salt. I can almost smell the beet horseradish. My siblings look so happy, and ready to dig in!
Six word Saturday is a blogging prompt suggested by Cate at Show My Face. Take a look and see if anyone really sticks to six words! Happy Saturday!
GenealogySisters 
Reblogged this on hocuspocus13.
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Thanks! I just took a look. Happy spring!
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Thank You and a 70° week-end does make it happy!
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These are great photos, and a lovely story. I remember as a child hearing about families that dyed and decorated eggs, but we never did. But when my son was about seven, I decided to have a go at it for him. We used food colouring, then decorated the eggs with 3-dimensional paint (there was no intention that we would eat them). Instead we took them to the top of a local hill and had egg rolling contests. I seem to remember that there were lots of people around, and we were sharing out the eggs with them. The “tradition” only lasted a few years, but became a neighbourhood thing with a few kids from the street decorating eggs at our house then taking them to roll at a picnic we organised. It was such fun! Not traditional I suppose, but better than staying home eating too much chocolate.
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Thanks Su! Your 3-D egg paint sounds very interesting. I think egg rolling is rather traditional, since it is done at our White House in Washington, DC every year. I just looked, and this year will be the 136th White House egg roll. But I have never done that. I’m looking forward to making some new traditions, too. I get to watch my beautiful granddaughter coloring Easter eggs this year. She’s just a toddler, but I’m betting she’s ready!
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Thanks for bringing back some fond memories with this post. The beet horseradish sounds delicious!
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Glad you enjoyed the memories! The beet horseradish is especially good on Polish kielbasa and the hard-boiled eggs.
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Lovely photos!
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Thank you!
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