Maybe I've outdone myself with holidays this year

This year Easter is a big monthlong season because the Protestant and Catholic Easter are a month earlier than the Greek Orthodox Easter. And Passover started earlier and overlapped many of the same days as Easter this year, with Easter Sunday and end of Passover both this past weekend.

Today, of course, is Easter Monday, which used to be a school holiday when I was a kid. And now the Greek Orthodox Easter is coming up May 2. So all the celebrations stretch more than one month. Nice. A festive and joyful time of year.

I still have all the Easter decorations out, and bought myself a new Easter Bunny coffee mug. It's very cheerful and I have bunnies distributed all over the house. The traditional early morning Easter egg hunt for chocolate eggs was such fun as kids. How Easter Bunnies had chocolate eggs and Peeps is still a mystery to me.

This Orthodox Easter I think I'll make the Nazareth traditional stuffed chicken. Baheej loved that dish and always wanted to host the dinner so he'd be sure of the meal, and enjoy friends and family here. We shall see … it's a bit of a project, but a must do.

And there is a nice Nazareth Easter soup that is chicken broth, small lamb meatballs (spiced with cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg), a little rice and pine nuts browned in butter. Usually this is the first course but good for a little lunch or supper in itself. When I grew up, the dinner was always an Easter ham and a standing rib beef roast, green beans and other Minnesota favorite dishes. So yesterday I made a ham.

Minnesota food had some amusing dishes when I was a kid. The molded salad was a big item with many, many variations. All were basically Jell-O salads of various colors — green, orange, red — with lots shredded vegetables or fruits and nuts mixed in — even miniature marshmallows. One lime green concoction had cottage cheese and canned pineapple in it. So, really, they had very little to do with an actual salad. They often had lots of Cool Whip, which is a substitute for whipped cream. I think these salads were an invention of post World War II cooking here.

My mom made one with cubes of cherry Jell-O, black cherries, gram cracker crumbs and Cool Whip layered in a tall glass bowl or vase. It was so pretty and colorful. It looked like a “trifle.” Perhaps it had some chopped pecans in there. She served it with the meal like a salad but it certainly wasn't a salad! Funny memories.

One of my amaryllis plants is sprouting two big buds. Lovely. It's inside the house, of course. They are about ready to bloom, a nice sign of spring.

It's very important to the spirit and health of a bereaved person to continue to recognize and celebrate these major holidays and changes of the season. It's so easy to set these traditions and sensations aside, on the shelf so to speak, when grieving. Yet it's really better for the spirit to put up the decorations, leave them out for a while, and do something special — whether cooking, talking with friends or taking a drive. And soon we will be able to get together again in person.

Well, I'm leaving my decorations out until early May, through the Greek Orthodox Easter. It makes the house more cheery.

It's been a funny year regarding holiday decorations. Everything has been put up earlier and left up longer. I think it's been one way to add some coziness into the long “at home” COVID-19 winter we all went through. At one point I had five holiday themes overlapping at once — Christmas, New Year, Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day, and now Easter added in! I may be overdoing it, but you see the idea. This is when more is better.

So the point is: All holidays, whether religious or just traditional secular holiday celebrations, are important and comforting. I may have gone into holiday overdrive this year, but I find it's a very positive way to stay engaged with social and community life, and especially so for those who have lost a dear one and must find a path forward.

• Susan Anderson-Khleif of Sleepy Hollow has a doctorate in family sociology from Harvard, taught at Wellesley College and is a retired Motorola executive. Contact her at sakhleif@comcast.net or see her blog longtermgrief.tumblr.com. See previous columns at www.dailyherald.com/topics/Anderson-Kleif-Susan.