Easter Traditions from Childhood to Adulthood

Today is a special day for Christians. I think back on all the Easters of past years and how I celebrated them.

Like most special days in life, it’s all about traditions, even though I didn’t realize that until I was grown.

When I was a little girl, Easter meant shopping for a special dress to wear to church.

Along with the dress—usually something pink and frilly—I wore a hat, white gloves, lacy white socks, and patent leather shoes. My mom curled my hair too.

Easter Morning

On Easter morning, there were small baskets with jelly beans, small chocolate candies, and some of the hard-boiled colored eggs we’d dyed on Saturday.

I liked coloring and decorating the eggs, but I never liked boiled eggs. To me, the taste and smell of boiled eggs were gross. That hasn’t changed.

Then we went to church. The hymns we sang were the same every Easter. Songs like Christ the Lord is Risen Today, The Old Rugged Cross, Jesus Paid It All, and Blessed Assurance.

The flowers on the altar always included a few Easter lilies along with other flowers in bloom.

Most of the ladies in the South had Easter lilies growing in their yards. There were no floral departments in the grocery stores back then—at least not in our small town.

If the lilies bloomed to coincide with Easter, it was a triumph for the home gardener and everyone basked in the perfume of those white lilies floating above the congregation.

Why These Lilies

In 1777, Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg “officially discovered” the Easter lily in the Ryukyu Islands of Japan.

That fact interested me particularly since I spent 6 years living on the largest of the Ryukyu Islands.

The lily ended up in England in 1819. From there it traveled to Bermuda a couple of decades later and was named the Bermuda lily.

Sometime later the lily was taken to Philadelphia, and the name was changed to Easter lily because it bloomed in the spring, usually around the time of Easter.

During World War I, the Easter lily became even more popular. In 1919, soldier Louis Houghton saw the flower and was so captivated by the beautiful fragrant blooms that he took a suitcase full of the bulbs back to Oregon. He gave them to his friends, who also were horticulturists.

That was the beginning of commercial production on the West Coast of the U.S. By the end of World War II, more than 1,000 growers in Oregon and California were producing the bulbs.

The region was called Easter Lily Capitol of the World. Oregon and California retain that name because they still grow 95 percent of all Easter lilies, one of the most popular potted plants in this country.

Lilies of the Bible

The Easter lily is sometimes called the white-robed apostle of hope. Some think this fragrant pure white lily is the one mentioned in the Bible several times.

No one really knows since there are so many varieties of lily. They’ve been know since antiquity and grew across most of Europe, India, Asia to Indochina, Japan and the Philippines.

The most famous biblical reference is when Jesus told his followers, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin; and yet…Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

Today, Easter Lilies are readily available just about everywhere. I always get a pot or two at this time of the year and bring them home.

First the perfume my home. When they start dying back, I plant them in the garden where they grow and bloom every spring.

Their fragrance always takes me back to the Easters of my childhood. The only difference is that today, as an adult, I think about the reason we celebrate this day.

Takeaway Truth

Happy Easter to those who celebrate the risen Christ, and Peace to all, regardless of your beliefs.