HAPPY EASTER!!!!

To all of our friends and family back home...HAPPY EASTER!! We just spent a wonderful and lively Easter day with a few of our friends, chinese and expat alike! I especially miss our big, beautiful home back in the States around the Holidays. I love to have friends and family over for big gatherings where we can all eat and chat! I have hesitated to entertain over here in China due to several reasons...

One: It can very difficult to find Holiday themed accouterments around town. And if you are told where to look, it's a good possibility that the vendor or store runs out of the item you're looking for or never carried it in the first place. Food is an even harder battle to fight around the Holidays. All the western items we associate with certain Holidays can be very difficult to find over here. You really need to know where to look. And like I said, it's not always a guarantee you'll find it. If you DO find something you want, you can BET you'll be paying top dollar for it.

TWO: Our house is a little smaller than our home in the States...and it echoes due to the hollow flooring. While we have plenty of toys for the kids to play with, the volume increases exponentially with each child. So, if the weather is poor and we are all confined to indoor activities...well, it could be potentially deafening. It's often times unclear just how many people to invite over to to this constriction.

THREE: Mixing of cultures can be...tricky. You want everyone to have a good time, so of course, you have to think about the "right" mix of people. There will be those who can speak Chinese and those who can't...and it's important to make sure that everyone will have someone to talk to during the event, preferably a few people they can mingle with during the party would be nice.

Since it took awhile for us to adjust, it was clearly a bad idea to try and host an event. However, since I had several people who wanted somewhere to go for an Easter egg hunt, and we have a nice, big backyard, it seemed like a good idea to test the party waters, or so to speak.

There were a few things I had to "roll with". Easter is almost non-existent here in China. It doesn't generally promote a large cash flow for the vendors, like Christmas, and the fact that there aren't too many Christians here...Easter is not celebrated with great fervor like other Holidays. I didn't find any plastic eggs. The french grocery store had a few chocolate eggs that were hollow, in their imported section. They had a few larger chocolate items that they wanted a small fortune for, like white chocolate bunnies in little wooden cages, chocolate roosters and chocolate bells (not sure what's up with that). Egg coloring kits were nowhere to be found and the import grocery store had a few chocolate items and lollipops. Those cheap pastel colored Easter baskets that can normally be found in the $.99 store back home were non existent in all of Shanghai...well, at least in the 20 or so stores I looked.

I was SO lucky that some family members back home sent the kids Easter baskets. They even included an egg coloring kit, which gave the kids more decorating variety! THANK YOU SO MUCH for sending those Easter care packages! Easter has always been a big deal in our family and I was happy to be able to produce a comparable Easter to one they would get back home, especially since they are at the perfect ages to enjoy it!

Even if I find food that I'm familiar with for the Holiday, I often question the quality and it's origin. However, with that being said, I did happen to [accidentally] stumble upon an imported half boneless, cooked ham in the Costco equivalent warehouse store. Yah! What luck! And there was only one of them! All I had to do was heat it up in the oven for 1-2 hours and it was ready to go! It turned out to be super easy! And considering that ham could be served as the main meat for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter...or ANY large gathering, I feel much more confidant to host future parties. After the ham was heated, I sliced it up and served it with some rolls. I had brought over Costco's Rasberry Chipolte sauce and it went VERY well with the ham as a side condiment. Whew! However, WHITE eggs are really hard to find over here. They are all brown or even black-ish. But, no white. Frustrating!



So, what were some of my solutions to the Easter theme quest? I purchased the chocolate eggs I had found and added it to the bunches of LIGHT brown eggs we can find just about anywhere over here. Even the light brown eggs turned out pretty good. I added a little more vinegar to the color dye, so that the color would stick a little better. It worked! We had tons of eggs to hide by the time we were done decorating! I made the event a potluck, so I wasn't the only one responsible for providing both western and chinese food for our guests. That way, our chinese guests felt like they could stuff their bellies as well. I put out lots of nuts and a couple of appetizers to supplement the ham and other food. We had bowls of chips and crackers and a plate of fruit as well. We had lots of drinks for both the kids and adults. I had asked the parents who wanted to join us to bring eggs, boiled and ready to color as well as a basket for each of their children. I decorated the house with plenty of fresh flowers!



I found a couple of industrial looking baskets at a store, in addition to them having the baskets that relatives sent. We had two major crafts for the kids. First, the kids colored the eggs they had brought. The boys and I had colored several of them a day in advance, so the kids could either color the eggs in the dye or use markers and stickers to place on the already dried colored eggs. They produced a lot of artwork! ;-) Second, we decorated our baskets with ribbons and fresh cut flowers. They were soooo pretty!



All the children who were at the party, were at an age to believe in the Easter Bunny. So, we got them all riled up about the Easter Bunny's arrival and pulled the shades while the eggs were being hid along his bunny trail. The kids LOVED it! Then, they were set free to find the eggs as well as a couple of super big chocolate chickens! What fun! All their little eyes were lit up as they raced all over our backyard to find eggs! And they all did sooo good! Afterwards, the kids settled down to dip into their Easter baskets right away. The rest of the day was spent playing outside. It was a beautiful spring day and they all had lots and lots of spring time fun! :-)

My Chinese friends wanted me to explain our Easter Holiday tradition(s). Like Christmas, I explained that Easter could be celebrated a couple of different ways (or both), both religiously and to celebrate the coming of spring (ie, Easter Bunny and his farm friends). They compared it to their own spring festival in January/February. I agreed. I also made sure to mention that Easter is my own family's tradition to celebrate spring. I explained that my own family usually got together and ate, had Easter egg hunts, etc. We generally spent lots of time outdoors in the spring time air. We decorated with spring colors and collected spring flowers. They liked this explanation a lot because I think they could understand it. The celebration of spring seems to be universal. ;-)

Also, I have had to introduce my chinese friends to the idea of potluck. It has taken them a couple of times, coming over to our house, to understand this concept. Now, they really like it! Culturally, the chinese women will spend tons and tons of time in the kitchen, preparing dish after dish of food for the family. Generally, a chinese party will have everyone sitting down to a meal together. While the potluck idea offers more versatility. My chinese friend pointed out that westerners tend to move around a lot more over the meal, especially potluck style. She observes that it's more casual, where the chinese way is a bit more formal. She says she likes the idea of not having to stay in the kitchen so much. She likes 'potluck' style. Everyone can have a variety of food, with much less work! I agree!

As a parting gift, I had separated out several flowers from the bunches of flowers I decorated the house with, tied them up with several pieces of ribbon I had bought for the basket craft and gave them to the women in our group. I also had found cheap clay eggs that contained a live plant inside and had funny faces drawn on the outside. The kids will fun cracking open the tops of those and watching the plant grow. And then I packaged up the leftover ham and sent a large portion home for the families to eat for days. The parents' arms were stuffed full of goodies as they said their goodbyes! ;-) And the kids were more than ready for an early bedtime. haha

All in all, it was a fantastic Easter, spent with good friends and lots of fun! I love Easter. I love spring. HAPPY SPRING Everyone!!