The Lamb of Easter

The First Easter Pizza

We had our Easter dinner on Holy Saturday at my parent's place. My mom says that when Armenians have dinner. We don't hide eggs, but we do play the egg tapping game. I introduced my nieces to the egg game and warned them not to play with Dede Vartan (my grandfather, their great-grandfather) because he cheats by using a fake egg. The nieces giggled excitedly as they hit the eggs against each other until they were all broken.

My parents and my sister's family were invited to come to my place on Sunday for lunch which included Easter pizza (a tradition since the First Easter Pizza in 2003) and leftovers from Mom's dinner. I spent all morning preparing the dough and making the pizzas completely from scratch. In addition to two large ones (a tomato with basil and a spicy pepper with mushroom) I made two small cheese pizzas for the nieces. I also made some brown rice to supplement the white rice, fish, and curried peas my parents supplied.

My mother made sure not to forget the lamb cake my grandfather brought with him on Saturday evening. I don't know where he gets them from, but he seems to have one of these freaky things every year. Sevana had asked her grandmother to give her the head on Saturday, but she was told she had to wait until Easter for that. After lunch, my mother decapitated the lamb and proudly presented the head to Sevana. The headless lamb was so morbid I almost cried... right before I sliced off a piece of the neck to taste it for myself.

Sevana finally gets her hands on
the head of the Lamb of Easter.

By the time Alique got to it, it was missing
an ear but she didn't seem to mind.

After everyone was done eating, the adults went back to my parent's house for chai. The girls hung out and played for a while. Once Alique started getting sleepy, she could no longer suppress her fear of the cats and dog. That's when Linda came to pick up the nieces and I started cleaning up.