Христос воскресе!!!!

Indeed He is Risen!!

Христос воскресе means Christ is Risen.  The phonetic pronunciation of the Russian is "Khristos Voskrese!"

Pascha was lovely and hectic all at the same time.  It always is for our family.  Thursday night we read the Passion Gospels, which I enjoy reading.  Then on Friday, we brought out the shroud of Christ, it was a very somber and tearful service.

Then came Holy Saturday.  Usually I go for the morning service where we read a big chunk of the Bible, however, I hadn't been home properly in over a week so I had to manage some things at home.  I went over to my Nana's mid-afternoon to help with dying the eggs.  My Nana already made the Syrnaya Pascha bread  and my mother made the Kulich bread which we eat along with the syrnaya pascha cheese...so rich and tasty!

Syrnaya Pascha

The below photo is not my Mother's Kulich!!!! Unfortunately, one of the Kulich's didn't rise properly nor bake so we only had one which we didn't bother to decorate.  Instead we ate it the next morning for breakfast!! Luckily, it was really tasty and fully cooked through.  Thought I would share a photo of what a proper Kulich is supposed to look like!

Nice, right?!!

I think I gained back the weight I lost during Lent with two slices of Kulich and Syrnaya Pascha!! The Pascha cheese is made with quark cheese, vanilla bean, whipping cream, sugar and something else really fattening....oh ya, butter!

As for the service, the most important part of Lent, we started the service at 11:30.  Then at midnight, that's when the joyous part of the service begins and we shout out "Khristos Voskrese" and "Voistinu Voskrese" as a reply to however shouted out the first part!! We try to do it in a bunch of other languages as well such as Greek, English of course, and some other one I can't remember!! It's a very exciting part of the service.  After the service was finished, it's traditional, for I think Eastern Europeans and Russians, to greet each person in the parish with "Khristos Voskrese" and kiss the cheeks three times.  Fortunately, we have a small parish because usually this takes awhile to get through everyone!

The service ended at 2 am and we feasted and had some wine until 3 am. I was exhausted but exhilarated at the same time. We also have a tradition where we each have an egg and we "war" or "bash" our eggs together and see who's egg will break first.  This involves some much practiced strategy for one person to win and still have their egg uncracked.  I figured out the trick when I was around 13 years old! I won't tell you what the trick is just in case you are invited to do this at some point in the future!! I didn't win this year because others out smarted me and my egg!!

The next day, both my Nana and I worked hard on preparing the dinner for the family.  I actually didn't really get a chance to visit with anyone because I was so busy cooking and cleaning afterwards!!  Here's some photos of the table and our meal.

It was a lovely dinner and a lovely Pascha.  Full of joy and celebration.  I will leave you with a photo of my finished Quaker design, stitched for myself, and some pictures of spring trees and flowers.

Had to include some really cute photos of Titus playing with his mink. Yes, I did type mink.  It is a piece of mink my Nana saved from some old jacket she had.  I thought it would be a good toy.  He loves it!!

He soooo doesn't look happy there!! LOL!!!

Oh right, almost forgot! It's IHSW this weekend!!! If you haven't signed up before, do so! Just click the hermit crab picture and it will take you directly there! I hope to try and work more on Jane and TBF and perhaps start another small...we'll see!!

Thanks for your lovely comments! Hugs to all and Happy Stitching!!!

Anne