Happy Easter!

Easter in Ukraine was a week later than the USA so we just finished celebrating as of yesterday.

It was your typical Ukrainian Easter. We woke up at 2:30am to get to the church by 3am. We stood around the church on the edges of the sidewalks with out baskets. Our baskets were filled with Easter bread, butter, salt, eggs, salo and anything else you want blessed. Now Easter bread is break made especially for this holiday. It is usually round and tall and has some sweetness to it on the top. Sometimes decorated with jimmies or other sweet things. Traditionally, the bread was made at home but it takes a really long time to make it and you need certain cooking utensils. The service inside the church generally starts at 3am. So we get to the church early to get some good real estate. The closer you position yourself to the door where the priest will eventually come out the sooner you will be blessed and the sooner you can return home to start making breakfast or lunch or retire to the bed for a few hours.

Last year I came to this same church and did this exact thing. Only last year I was with Jeramie, Danny and Jeramie's neighbors aka grandparents. But we had some really good real estate. This year I went with Alla, Nickolai, Bogdana, Lyuda and a few of Alla's neighbors and co-workers. This is my Konotop Ukrainian family and it was good to be with them this year but the real estate was not as good. We definitely did not have our game faces on.

The priest came out at about 4am. He got to us around 4:30am, blessed all of our goodies and then we all started to scatter in different directions. I went home for a few hours to sleep. Alla and family went home as well and started cooking food for breakfast and lunch. I came back over around 2pm and had the meal of the year. I sat there at that table from 2pm to 5pm and just ate and drank. You can tell from the picture what happens next.

This was my last Easter in Ukraine. I won't need to wake up at 2:30am next year to stand outside of the church. It was a lovely day with my family.