It's Easter Time at Linderhof

On Ash Wednesday, we bring up a very special box from the basement. It contains a dozen hand painted real hens eggs. We hang them from branches in the dining room. Always in the dining room.
On a Lenten trip to Germany many years ago, we were charmed by their custom of the "Easter Egg Tree". We always stayed in bed and breakfasts and each seemed to have a vase full of spring branches from which they hung painted eggs.

That's why our Easter Egg Tree is always in the dining room!
When asking one of our hosts where one might find these eggs, we were told "Woolworths" -- and so to Woolworth's we went about mid trip. We chose a dozen eggs to bring home. The cost -- $12!

Every year since, we've hung our German Easter eggs on Ash Wednesday. They're a reminder of a special time, of many special places we visited, and we cherish each and every one.

The dining room table is reserved for the Easter lilies we'll buy the week before Easter. As poinsettias are for Christmas so are the lilies for Easter. It was a rite of my mother's and it is a rite of mine as well.
The breakfast room table, however, has my French wire egg holder with some Williams Sonoma Alabaster eggs that I got at a deep deep discount one year after Christmas, an ivy topiary and an iron rabbit -- my latest rabbit.
On a recent trip to the city, we went to Pottery Barn and found these lovely eggs which I placed in the egg holder. From the dining room, I got out one of my silver boiled egg serving pieces (complete with "egg spoons") and decided that they would be a great holder for the Alabaster eggs.

Forsythia is in vases in the living room -- my nod to spring but not necessarily Easter. From the reds and greens of Christmas, the bright yellow of the forsythia is like a ray of sunshine after the dreary winter.

We enjoy our eggs, both new and old. They're part of Linderhof's traditions.