Celebrating Easter with Family

I was compensated by Evite for my time in developing this post. All opinions are my own.

I am normally a paper invitation kind of gal.  However, I do use Evite for our smaller events when we're entertaining at home or having a meetup for dinner or even lunch with friends.  This way, I can easily keep track of who will be coming.  Evite also makes it easier for anyone who is always on the go, you can RSVP lickity-split and add the date to your calendar.  It really makes life simpler.  I also love that there is an option to also send greetings and even tangible gifts to your loved ones, as well. So, I'll be sure to use Evite this year to send a little online love to those who won't be able to visit with us this Easter holiday.

I was asked by Evite recently to share how I celebrate the holiday with my family.  Evite has a wide variety of  online Easter greetings available on their site to choose from. I chose a beautiful watercolor Easter basket design and used it as inspiration for how I will be celebrating with my family.

In our home, Easter is that one holiday that starts up the family gatherings after winter's passed and spring brings out the happiness of new life and color.  I love entertaining for friends and hosting parties for others, but there is nothing more special than to pull out my favorite dishes, silverware and serving plates and gather my loved ones around a holiday table.  Besides, I don't really need that much of a reason to decorate for a holiday or special event, so, anytime we can get family and friends over to entertain and have a good time, we're game!

Each year we usually start our Easter day with either Sunrise or Early Morning service.  We prefer to get our fill of the Lord early in the day so we can have the afternoon for lots of good eating and fun activities for the kids.  This year, I know we'll be going to church early and I thought it would be a great idea for us to come home to a lovely brunch. You can use the ideas I am sharing for inspiration to create your own holiday family memories.

For simple brunch food, I wanted to include dishes that my family loves.  Every Easter, we usually have a huge Ham and big old pot of Green Beans.  This year, I wanted to scale down how much food we made.  I got lucky while I was out shopping for our Easter dinner when I found the cutest baby ham at Target!  I didn't even know ham could be so adorable. It was super easy to roast up in the oven.  Normally my husband cooks the green beans the old fashioned southern way, boiled down in salt pork, and it tastes great. However, since I've recently changed my way of eating and sneaking my lighter cuisine into my family's diet, I wanted to try something new.  So, this time I sauteed the green beans in Sesame oil and added garlic, mushrooms and radishes to them and topped them with slivered almonds.  They're super yummy.

Brunch always needs breakfast food.  For a spin on a deli style breakfast sandwich, I made egg salad toasties topped with bacon.  These are very easy to make, just add a basic egg salad, to toasted bread cut into small squares and top them with chopped bacon.  My kids love egg salad and bacon....wins all around.  They also love French Toast in the morning.  I did something different this time and used a loaf of blueberry bread instead of basic white bread and it really was delicious.  You can also use French Bread or Brioche. 

An Easter Brunch would not be complete with out a brunch punch. Brunch Punch can be your favorite fruit juice with seltzer and a few frozen berries!  It's a delicious spin on a Bellini or Mimosa.  Serve cupcakes for dessert....because....CUPCAKES!

Everything for my table decor came from my party stash....except for the large plates, bowls and napkins (I created those bunny ears using this tutorial).  I normally use white plates for my place settings, but I again wanted to draw some color into this tablescape using the inspiration from the Evite greeting.  Also, I designed my Easter Basket centerpiece using the main design from the card.  I simply filled a wooden basket with old newspaper, a bit of floral moss and water color decorated Easter Eggs!  The rest of the accessories on the table were pulled from my Easter and spring decor. 

We don't usually do a separate kids table for Easter, but I don't want the table to look like it's for grown ups only.  I know the kids love bunnies, chocolates and Easter Eggs, so, adding those elements to the table were a must. 

Easter is usually never as fancy a holiday for us as Christmas or Easter is.  Since I wasn't making a lot of food, there was space to add small platters of the dishes I prepared for our meal!  This gives us more time to pass the plate around and chat without having to get up and down for seconds!

Here's a tip for adding flowers to your table decor.  I love using small jars and egg cups and simply adding cut flowers to them.   Small mason and canning jars are a great way to make clusters of flowers around your table.  I use mini carnations all the time and fill glass jars with them for our holiday parties. 

Evite gets the fun started but you can always create great memories with your family and loved ones. Every Easter weekend, we dye a few eggs and set them out for the Easter Bunny to take with him when he drops of the kids' baskets.  We always end our Easter with a fun Egg Hunt for the kids in the family.  It's always such a delight to see them running around and gathering all their treats.  I need to find some other fun games and activities that we can do. I'm thinking now that the kids are a bit bigger, sac races are about to become a Sibert Family Tradition.  Do you have any fun Easter traditions that you do with your family?.  I'd love to hear from you - leave a comment below.