Holidays are not really my thing. Traditions aren’t either. Since having children, I’ve been trying to find a way to simply, stress-less-ly (yes, I just made that up) make our own traditions to enjoy and celebrate days like Christmas and Easter. I’m pretty happy with what we did this year.

On a blog I’ve been following, I saw a tutorial on how to dye beautiful crimson red “Greek” Easter eggs naturally. I loved this science experiment and tradition rolled into one and I practically jumped up and down when I googled to find that this is an Orthodox tradition, meaning it’s something they also do in Ukraine and Russia as well. Knocking out a a science experiment, egg dying tradition and remembering my children’s heritage. Boo-yah.

It was simple, and fun.

Looks a bit gross here, but…

They were an amazing crimson when wet.

And they dried to this brick red.

Eggs to symbolize life and red to symbolize the blood of Christ.

I only wish I had read this tutorial soon. Next year, we may try to get a bit more experimental with different vegetable colors and doing herb prints. But, we may just keep it entirely to simple, crimson red eggs. Or maybe we’ll find a new “tradition” we love even more.

And I baked Paska, an Eastern European Easter bread. Recipe here.

I learned not to wait until the kids are in bed the night before Easter to begin baking Paska. I love nighttime baking, without interruption or distraction, but Paska takes a lot of rising time. There are a lot of beautiful ornaments you can make on your Paska bread, but by the time I was that far along, I just wanted to get it done. According to my googling, traditionally, the preparations with bread and dying the eggs begin on Thursday!

He is risen!