Let’s talk about Easter, and tradition.
I am a HUGE believer in Family Portraiture, and not because of any commercial aspect or that it is a service that I offer.
Families grow and change through the years, eventually separating to start more families. We don’t often notice the changes as we go through life, however when we glance back through the family portraits of previous years we can remember sights, sounds, smells, the feeling of being near other family members, and a host of other feelings and sensations that we’d largely forgotten about – seeing a memory is a huge stimulus towards reliving aspects of it. The family portrait becomes a means of communicating the past into the now. It might sound a little “deep”, but it really is important to keep these memories going, and as I said above it is something that I very strongly believe in.
Every year since we moved to a house with a fair sized garden (compared to our previous postage stamp Town House), we have held a Good Friday Easter Egg Hunt for family and friends, especially those with kids. Belinda came up with the idea during our first year in the house, and it’s become a tradition that we’ve run ever since. The idea is basic yet it works SO well.
Step 1. Everyone arrives, parents coming with a bunch of chocolate Easter eggs to be used for “The Hunt”.
Step 2. Once everyone has arrived, the kids are ushered out the back, where Belinda has prepared the outdoor area with loads of paper bags, stickers, felt-tip pens, crayons, craft stuff, sparkly bits etc etc. The idea being that each child will decorate their own bag, which will soon (though not as quickly as they want) be used to collect the eggs.
The Mums wrangle the kids into doing their bags – this is easier for the older kids as they know what’s coming, but the younger onces can take some coaxing !
MEANWHILE . . out in the front yard the fathers have gathered in the age old ritual of “Egg Hiding”, which is not so much hiding the eggs as spreading them in diverse locations all around the front garden, all the while walking around with a glass of wine or a beer in hand. Some do get hidden, but not that many – most are pretty much in the open so that the gardens and the kids don’t get too trashed in the upcoming fray. As this is an . . ahem . . ancient and secret rite, we can’t show you any photos here. (besides, what’s so interesting about a few Dads, beverages in hand, scattering Easter eggs across the front garden ?)
My front yard is divided into two sections, so we set a bunch of eggs into the front-most, smaller, area which will be for the exclusive use of the younger kids. It’s safer that way (as you’ll see below).
Step 3. Gathering at the back gate, the kids are corralled so that the smallest are at the front, the taller at the back.
The Gate Keeper (note the required "constitutional" fortification)
The littlies get to come out first, and what they see is a grassed area COVERED in coloured Easter eggs. Mums & Dads get them through this area and into the front patch fairly quickly, and then the fun begins.
Step 4. The older kids are let loose, and the term “stampede” comes to mind. The adults all leap back out of the way as the rampaging hordes come streaming & screaming through the side gate, eager to gain the bragging rights of having the most eggs in their bag at the end of the hunt. It’s akin to watching a plague of locusts land on some unsuspecting wheat field – within only a few minutes there is no sign that there were ever hundreds of brightly wrapped packages of chocolatey goodness in the area, and everyone seems to be moving at a normal speed again.
The kids all absolutely love it, and what’s not to love ?! Loads of free chocolate, no restricions on eating it, EVERYONE gets a good helping and has a bit of competitive fun doing it.
Even the littlest ones get excited – this is my youngest niece Eliza running up the drive way to tell me something – and completely disrupting some scene I was trying to get behind her (but who cares !)
The adults head back inside for more wine/beer/valium/whatever, and the kids head out the back to consume the bounty, and to get some serious social intercourse happening.
At some stage during the afternoon the SingStar (karaoke) might get put on for all the budding Bonos & P!nks to have a crack at mangling singing a favourite tune (and at this stage be thankful that I’m a photographer, not a videographer, and I’m not putting a video of it online – it ain’t pretty !). But that’s not all that happens . . . .
At the top of this entry I let you know how strongly I believe in family portraiture – I think families should have shots done every year or so, because families grow up so quickly, and can change so dramatically that you should capture the memories while you can. So my Easter “gift” to everyone who comes is a family portrait session. It happens right there, on Good Friday, in my front yard. I set up an area where people can sit & pose for me, it only takes about 30 minutes and everyone is done. No kids ? No problems ! We have friends who come to the house without children, and they get their photos taken too. For many of the families that come this might be the only shot they get of everyone in the same place at the same time for that year. I even wrangle one of our friends into taking a photo of my family for exactly the same reason – getting my lot to sit still together for more than five minutes is next to impossible.
Later they all get put online on the website, and everyone can go get them to do with as they wish. Being married to a scrapbooking/craft teacher also means that many of these shots will make their way onto various scrapbooking layouts, so it isn’t uncommon for me to take a photograph of a layout containing a photograph that I took at Easter.
Some friends put these up on their blogs, some have them printed, but regardless of the usage they all have a record of what their family looked like on a particular day, when everyone was having fun. Those who have been coming for a few years wind up getting a running set of images that give them what I think is so important – a record of the changes in their family over the years.
Our kids are starting to get older now – 2009 was the first year that our oldest abstained from the hunt festivities (I have a feeling that being 18 and running around after Easter eggs while your girlfriend watches from the sidelines might be considered “uncool”), and with it came the realisation that we might only be doing this for a few more years with my kids. However this year two of my nieces got right into it, and my sister-in-law invited another friend to join us who also had two children under 5, so it looks like we can keep this tradition going for some time. I’d even say we’ll be doing this as grandparents some day.
It’s become a tradition for us – it’s a great way to spend Good Friday, the house is generally trashed by the time everyone leaves (toys EVERYWHERE, meal & snack remants, bits of coloured wrapping foil), but more importantly (for a photographer, anyway) that little bit of family history is captured and preserved.
And as for the scrap booking ? Well Good Friday 2009 spawned no fewer than 8 layouts by Belle, and doubtless many more from the other scrappers there on the day.
Get Morca!
Mine
Man Behaving Badly
Who Says Easter is just for Kids?
Wild Flowers
Ready Set Wine!
First, Last, Everything
Game, Set, Match
- Michael
(and I learned that a larger man shouldn’t 
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