Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter!!!

Well, things have certainly been festive around here.  Personally I would jump in the air screaming "Hallelujah!" if I wasn't working so hard to keep my eyes open, because for the first time in *FIVE* years, I managed to attend, enjoy, and survive the Easter Vigil! For those of you who don't know, the Easter Vigil starts at ten P.M. Holy Saturday, with the blessing of the Paschal Candle, the blessing of the fire, the blessing of the Baptismal Water, the litany of the saints, and the renewal of our baptismal vows, and finishes up at midnight.  Then midnight Mass begins and lasts until around one A.M., after which you can either stay to pray Lauds with the monks for another forty-five minutes, or go socialize outside with everybody else.  It's a beautiful ceremony, and I've missed attending every year.  I wasn't even planing on going this year, but was going to just sleep in and go to High Mass on Sunday, but a friend told me frankly that (cough) I was a wimp.  Okay, since you put it that way, I'll spend all day long preparing Easter dinner, visiting with out of town friends, cleaning the house, changing the table and altar cloths, and then go stay up till two in the morning just to protect my self respect.  I didn't get to bed before midnight for the past four days and I will probably be exhausted in bed for the next four, but no matter! if that's what it takes to prove I am not a wimp, so be it. =)

Every holiday seems to have it's own share of catastrophes; this year mine included not finding anything to wear until literally twenty minutes before we had to leave, being attacked by a moth (it was scary), and the oven refusing to heat up (when you have been fasting for forty days and looking forward to a feast at the end, and suddenly you are faced with the possibility of NOT having that feast...panic ensues...).  On the upside, we all got to practice our improvisation skills and, thanks to pinterest, I now know it is possible to cook Creme Brulee in a crockpot.

 Dinner was HEAVENLY and we definitely enjoyed feasting after all that fasting...

After Vespers, some friends came over to play Yahtzee and eat dessert while Mom and Dad watched "Unbroken" upstairs.  As I mentioned before, I've been staying up late for the past few nights, and I'm so tired I can barely manage to type this post up, but, hey, it's only once a year. Even though this past week has been exhausting, it's been wonderful at the same time.  Now that I've gotten this checked off my list, I'm going lay in bed, eat chocolate and watch "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." with my family for the rest of the day.

(The Hot Cross Buns turned out to be a big hit, by the way.  I was too busy to try the recipe I had originally intended to use so I just made biscuits, replaced a third of the flour with powdered sugar (hehe), and added raisins.)

I hope you all have a very blessed Paschal-tide!