traditions

This is my 2025 Easter lamb cake.

​We have a few traditions in our family, and one is the Easter lamb cake. Apparently I wrote about it in 2019 - I even used the same title. Life was different then. 
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My mom used to make one every year. I really didn’t think much about it at the time, I just knew there would be an Easter lamb cake with Smartie eyes come Easter weekend. But now I know my mom made a lamb cake because her mom, my grandma, made one and my grandma made one because her mom, my great grandma, baked one too. It might go back even further, but I don’t have the details.

I found this photo of three lamb cakes my mom made - we must have been having company for Easter!

​My great grandma passed her lamb cake pan down to my grandma. My grandma passed it to my aunt who shares it with her siblings in Saskatoon if they want to make a cake. I wonder how many cakes have been baked in that pan! My mom passed her pan to me and my sister bought her own pan a few years ago.
 
We also know that some of grandma’s siblings made lamb cakes, so the tradition is likely still living on in other branches of the family tree.

My great-grandma/grandma/ aunt's pan

My mom's pan that I now use.

This is a cake my mom and I made together in 2019. It was her last lamb cake.

​Traditions.
They bind generations together.
They connect us to those who are no longer able to celebrate with us in the physical.
They bring comfort and a sense of belonging.

I think it was about a month in to the pandemic – you know, the time when we were looking for creative ways to stay connected from our homes. The time of toilet paper hoarding, Lysol wipes, and Netflix subscriptions.
 
Well, our family decided to have an Easter lamb decorating contest. Here are the submissions. (Spoiler: the Kraft-Mullane’s won the competition with their adorable lamb.)

My aunt Deb's beautiful cake

The Kraft-Mullane's winning cake

My Aunt Mary-Lou's cake - so cute

My 2020 cake

My aunt Pat's cake - there was no cake pan in Victoria so she had to get very creative!

​I made two cakes in 2020 and one was pandemic specific, named Lewinda Lambert. James made a video to showcase her beauty and captured a moment in history.

Here's the video...it's epic.

​We also colour eggs at Easter and we love to share Easter treats with each other. This year we are heading back to the Rimrock for brunch – a tradition that’s been on hiatus for a few years.

This was from our last Easter brunch at the Rimrock in 2018

​And there’s another Easter tradition I’ve come to appreciate – not from our family, but from the kind folks at Priority Mechanical. Every year around Easter, they pay for everyone’s parking at the cancer clinic. Their staff wear bunny ears, take your parking stub, pay the fee and wish you a happy Easter. How kind. It’s the small gestures that make all the difference.

There is always so much to be grateful for and I am very grateful for family traditions and my amazing, loving family. 

I hope you have a wonderful Easter!

An Easter/first birthday for Alana from 1974

Happy Easter!