easter

Easter morning I got the best surprise-
My neighbor gifted us a beautiful bouquet of pussywillow branches tied in ribbons.
Of course pussywillow branches are a popular spring decoration,
but they are also widely used in Palm Sunday customs and Easter decor.



Traditional German Easter postcard





I love the soft velvety gray/purple blooms, (called catkins).



Suddenly the house feels like spring, and I love walking past these beauties every day.

pysanky

I'm not really an Easter/spring decor kind of girl,
but once a year I like to bring out our heirloom Pysanky.
Intricately painted by my great uncle William Hanischuk, they are so
beautiful and so delicate.

Here's a little fascinating background of Pysanky, (from trusty Wikipedia)

"A pysanka (Ukrainian: писанка, plural: pysanky) is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated with traditional Ukrainian folk designs using a wax-resist (batik) method. The word pysanka comes from the verb pysaty, "to write", as the designs are not painted on, but written with beeswax.

As in many ancient cultures, Ukrainians worshipped a sun god (Dazhboh).^{[citation needed]} The sun was important - it warmed the earth and thus was a source of all life. Eggs decorated with nature symbols became an integral part of spring rituals, serving as benevolent talismans.
In pre-Christian times, Dazhboh was one of the main deities in the Slavic pantheon;^{[citation needed]} birds were the sun god's chosen creations, for they were the only ones who could get near him. Humans could not catch the birds, but they did manage to obtain the eggs the birds laid. Thus, the eggs were magical objects, a source of life. The egg was also honored during rite-of-Spring festivals––it represented the rebirth of the earth. The long, hard winter was over; the earth burst forth and was reborn just as the egg miraculously burst forth with life. The egg therefore, was believed to have special powers.^{[3] "}

So we are very lucky to have these beautiful,
and possibly benevolent magical objects passed down to us.
Once a year we take them out and admire them,
and I secretly stress out about breaking them before they are put away again
for another year.