Shopping for Easter Dresses

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This morning, I got to partake in one of spring’s grandest traditions — taking my daughter shopping for her Easter dress. Though she’s only three, she definitely has a sense of what fashions suit her.

“Mama, it has to be pink and twirly,” she said, as if I couldn’t guess. After rifling through the racks, she found four dresses that met her exacting specifications, thus beginning what I like to refer to as the Fashion Show. I helped her try on each dress, hurriedly fastening buttons and tying sashes before she could squirm away and begin twirling in front of the mirror, only to reject a dress because it was “too pink” or the skirt didn’t flare enough for her liking.

Finally, she found it — a pink plaid sundress with a fitted bodice, a-line skirt, and coordinating headband and cardigan. As she began to twirl in this dress, her eyes lit up in a fashion similar to the way mine did when I tried on my wedding dress. Grinning like a maniac, she didn’t have to say a word. She had found The Dress.

Needless to say, finding shoes was an equally involved process, which gave me time to think about Easter traditions from my own childhood. I vividly remember going dress shopping with my mother, and hearing her mutter under her breath something along the lines of, “I don’t know why you want a sundress. This is spring in Ohio, which means you’ll need a parka.” Despite that, I still wanted the “springiest” dress I could find, complete with white patent leather shoes and even a hat (even though my family only attended church on Christmas, I could justify the hat by reminding my mom that since I was going to Easter mass with one of my Catholic friends, I owed it to God to look my absolute best. I pushed the limits even back then.).

Now that I’m a mom, it’s kind of weird for me to relive my childhood memories since I’m now the one to make them happen. I’m making the family dinner, hiding the eggs (tip for any new mommies: write down where you hide the real eggs. It makes things so much less stressful!), and keeping the Easter Bunny story alive, which, I’m sure, will get to be a more and more elaborate ruse as the girls get older. Needless to say, there’s always pressure from my brother to do things the way our parents did them, despite whatever Hubs and I might want.

Despite all of the hoopla, I always have to stop and remind myself why I do it all — while my memories were wonderful, I want to create special memories for my girls that they will always treasure, as well, which means letting go of traditions that didn’t work for me, and finding new ones that do.

Sara Barton is a full-time writer and mommy, who blogs about her attempts at domestic perfection at So Many Flavors, So Little Time!, and also writes about her obsession with advertising on her marketing blog.

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