Happy Easter!

Easter eggs and the Easter bunny are not part of the Mexican celebration of Easter, and unlike some holiday customs from north of the border (such as Santa Claus and Christmas trees) they have not caught on here.

So, whenever my April trip to Mexico coincides with Easter I bring a package of plastic Easter eggs and some bags of Easter candy so that Alejandro's nephew, Ezra, can have an Easter egg hunt.  The night before Easter most of the family went to the vigil service at the parish church.  While they were gone I filled the eggs and hid them around the house on the ground floor.  (Ezra and his mom live upstairs.)  Back home I bought an Easter basket that is a plush toy in the form of the head of a bunny.  When you squeeze the handle of the basket, the bunny's ears pop up.  After the family returned from church and Ezra went to bed, I put the basket, with an Easter card inside, in an obvious place where he would see it the next morning. 

When he came downstairs before breakfast he found the basket and read the card (which of course was signed by the Easter Bunny).  The hunt for the hidden eggs began.  He found most of them quite easily, but the last six were a challenge.  (There were 36 eggs in the bag that I bought, and even I couldn't remember where I had hidden them all.)

After the last egg had finally been found, the five of us... Alejandro, his dad, his sister and nephew, and I... all went out for breakfast at a nearby VIPS.  (VIPS is a chain of restaurants that might be compared to Denny's in the U.S., but their menu has a very wide selection of tasty breakfasts.)  

Ezra and his mom at VIPS

Our bellies were full and happy after a big breakfast, but, even so, we stopped at an ice cream store for chocolate covered "paletas"... like popsicles but made with ice cream.  It was a very fun Easter morning.

Happy Easter... Happy Passover... Happy Spring... to all!