This year, in order to take a look back at our Easter celebration, we have to back way up, to before Holy Week even began! While Bunny was home from college on spring break, I made hot cross buns, and we made the paschal candle for the year, so she wouldn’t have to miss out on everything. Unfortunately, she had to go back to school the day before Palm Sunday, so she didn’t get to join us for that (or any of the church services that followed).

Our Holy Week was pretty standard, even though we were missing having Bunny at home. We went to church on Maundy Thursday:

On Good Friday, when I wasn’t teaching school, I was working in the kitchen, chopping things and making pita bread. Ladybug helped out by baking and decorating some cupcakes for me:

And then we went to church. The service was beautiful, as was the sunset we were treated to upon leaving the building:

On Saturday, I was back at work in the kitchen, making baklava, tsoureki (a Greek Easter Bread), and prepping other various components of our Easter dinner:

I also did a little work on decorating, including pairing some linens in a new way for the kitchen island and making our napkins look like bunnies!

And then it was time for the best church service of the year, The Great Vigil of Easter!

On the way home, according to tradition, we stopped at Wendy’s for Frostys and fries, and watched Rick Steves’ European Easter.

Back to church this morning for a service filled with joy and beautiful music!

It was weird taking pictures of only four of the children. Since things were already different, I decided that instead of taking my usual pictures by the font, I’d go with the Paschal Candle as the backdrop instead:

And a picture of…the Fab Four? Nope…that just isn’t right!

Also a picture of 6/7 of our family:

I planned a special Easter breakfast this year…I finally learned how to make omelettes! So we had a made-to-order omelette bar, featuring ham and smoked salmon, dill, chives, mushrooms, bell peppers, and two kinds of cheese:

We also had mixed berries, 13(!!!!) kinds of mini donuts (Seasonal varieties included carrot cake, blueberry, peach cobbler, spring sprinkles, honey bun, strawberry shortcake, plus the standards: powdered, old fashioned, glazed, frosted, zebra, crunch, and double chocolate ), pink pineapple, and the requisite Easter candy:

Here’s a look at our completed Osterstrauß, which was the centerpiece of our buffet:

I chose a smoked salmon, dill, and mushroom omelette, and it was delicious! I also really enjoyed the pink pineapple, which I thought tasted a little bit like watermelon…it might have just been a mental thing because it looked kind of like watermelon, though!

I didn’t have a whole lot of work to do this afternoon since I had prepped so much of dinner, so I had plenty of time for setting the table while we watched the first two My Big Fat Greek Wedding movies:

My family requested gyros for dinner, so I seasoned some sizzle steak with gyros seasoning we found at the international market and cooked it in my best approximation of gyros. We had all our favorite toppings: homemade tzatziki sauce, tomatoes, onions, and feta cheese:

I decided to go full-on Greek with our dinner, including a Greek salad, spanakopita, the previously-mentioned tsoureki, and because I’m still scared of making saganaki, fried feta coated in sesame seeds. The only thing missing was dolmas (stuffed grape leaves)…maybe someday I’ll tackle those!

I’ve been thinking about doing a Greek Easter dinner for a few years, so I really enjoyed it!

In keeping with our Greek theme, we had baklava sundaes for dessert:

And I found some time to stop by and say “hi” to Zipper T. Bunny!

This was our first big holiday without all of us here, which was weird and sad, but we made the best of it, and it was still a lovely Easter!