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Students share Easter holiday traditions

With Easter Sunday around the corner, many Weber State University students said they still participate in Easter traditions even as they have gotten older, but for out-of-state students, the Easter holiday might be spent differently.

Jamieson Strople, a WSU student, said his family did a lot of things for Easter, but he won’t be participating in them this year, because his family lives in his home state, California.

“When me and my sister were little, our parents, or ‘Easter Bunny’, would hide eggs around our house,” Strople said. “They’d hide eggs and movies and other gifts, and we’d run around the house trying to find them under the furniture and in the little nooks and crannies and places.”

He said his family would gather around the table and share what they had found, followed by religious services and a big family dinner. However, this year, Strople is staying in Utah for the holiday.

“I don’t know if I’m going to do anything,” Strople said. “I might go down to my aunt’s in Salt Lake and stay with them for Easter.”

Mandy Gomez, another WSU student, is also from California. She said she will go home with her friend Summer Simmons for the holiday. Gomez said that while she was growing up, she would color eggs every year until she was about 11.

“I’d make them super crazy and cool, different Easter eggs,” Gomez said. “And then I used to go to my grandparents every year. Everyone always gathered there, and we’d have, like, our own Easter egg hunt. It was a lot of fun.”

Gomez said she is excited to see how Simmons’ family celebrates Easter. Simmons said her family used to go camping for Easter, and her parents would play Easter Bunny by hiding their baskets and leaving a map for them to follow to their gifts.

“But as we got older, we don’t go out camping anymore,” Simmons said, “because it gets cold. But we still hold the big Easter egg hunt with, like, all the family. We go to the park, and we have different sections for different age groups.”

Unlike Gomez, who said her family said she is too old for certain traditions, Simmons’ family keeps all ages involved in the traditions. She also said some of their Easter eggs have money hidden in them.

WSU student Yvette Young said her family also incorporates older and younger children in their family Easter traditions.

“We just do a family Easter egg hunt,” Young said. “Since we moved to Utah, my grandma does one for all her grandkids, no matter what the age, in her back and front yard. The older kids hide the eggs for the younger kids, and the younger kids hide the eggs for the older kids. It’s kind of fun.”

Young, Simmons, Gomez and Strople all said they will carry on traditions from when they were young in their future families. Tammy Edwards said having a child brings back the focus of holidays.

“I think it is different when you are a parent,” Edwards said, “because holidays are important to children. And it’s kind of one of those holidays, as well like Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter, that have the religious aspect, so they are quite family-oriented. On those days we put school aside, and it’s just family time and bonding time.”

Edwards said that this year, she will blend traditions she has with her 12-year-old daughter with her new stepchildren. She said she and her daughter usually hide eggs and have Easter dinner, and her daughter gets a new Easter outfit every year. Edwards said she thinks that, without children or family to celebrate the traditions, the holiday of Easter can become forgotten by some students.

“When you don’t have something there to keep you focused on a holiday like a child, then they do get forgotten,” Edwards said.

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