Did You Have to Work This Easter?

I work every holiday, I just don't get paid.
Yesterday I cleaned the house, did laundry, and mowed the lawn. That's what I do on my days off from my paying job.
I also repaired a celing fan.

Is there a reason you didn't just do things on your schedule rather than the calendar? We were in a car all day Easter, so we wrote letters to the Easter bunny, asked him to come early, hunted eggs Saturday, had lamb Thursday evening - the only thing we missed was church, but Palm Sunday was a big service - I was in two musical groups and my daughter acolyted. When we can't celebrate on the correct time, we do it on our time.

Imagine being a chef. My husband works Wed-Sat every week (at least 10 hours, usually 15, each day). Anything that happens on any of those days he misses. Period. Every weekend I spend alone with the kids. He has missed graduations, school plays, dinners with friends, all kinds of events that assume everyone has off on the weekends. And he works any holiday that falls on those days, with a couple of exceptions. He gets some Catholic holidays off since one of his employers is (as we say here) "very Catholic" and can afford to close on those days.
On Easter (we are not Christian so this is not a holiday for us) we had our oldest son's graduation party. My husband and I "worked" from abut 7am until 5:30pm, doing all the prep and clean up, too. But it was a labor of love :) Then we took a long nap while the kids played on the PS3.

You won't get "back" the memories, but you have infinite chances to make new ones. Don't be so hard on yourself.

No, but you're not the only working mom. I don't work Easter because I don't work Holidays. I'm a teacher. I don't have the kind of schedule where people get "scheduled" to work different days. For the most part, we are closed on holidays, so I'm home.

That being said. You have a job. If you think there is one that's a better fit out there, start looking, but you already know to be thankful for what you have.

In the mean time, just time-shift your holidays. With the exception of sunrise Mass, there's nothing about Easter that can't have been done on a day you're off... or in the afternoon if you had to work the morning. Less time being sad, more time making it work. Be a thermostat, not a thermometer!

HTH
T.

PS
No one gets Valentines day off unless it happens to fall on Presidents Day :)

I think it's time to consider celebrating Easter on Saturday or saving some of the festivities for after you get off work.

I do understand. I teach, so I have my weekends and Christmas. But I have missed Halloween the last 3 years. By the time I get home the kids are half out of their costumes and staring at the tv ready to crash.

Hang in there! And do try to consider some ways to celebrate the holidays that do fit your schedule.

no, but i worked an awful lot of holidays, including mothers days and christmases, when my boys were small. it sucked. but like you, i did what i had to do. we needed the money, and that was that.
we did our best to arrange things so that at least part of the festivities went on while i was there. the easter egg hunts might have to be moved to dawn, or take place easter evening. visiting with other family members might have to be rearranged, or canceled altogether. making sure you get at least some time with your kids is the most important.
but most important of all, don't spend that precious time bemoaning how short it is, or apologizing, or focusing in any way on the 'sacrifice.' take what time you can and make it magical.
khairete
S.

I'm sorry you're bummed! I know what it's like to have an idea of how things should be in your head and then it happens a different way. But, chin up--you have tons of opportunities to make memories with your family! My kids wanted to do another Easter egg hunt after school today, so we did! You can do one any day! I'm sure there are pluses to your job (not being a SAHM or a 9-5r). Just focus on those:)

My family has a lot of people who work caring for other people/animals, and can't always get holidays off... Plus, most of us really like getting that holiday pay. We decided years ago that we would celebrate major holidays a couple days early. It isn't a big deal at all, we have just as much fun... Plus, as we have all gotten married and having kids of our own, it makes life much easier with visiting in-laws for holidays. :) sometimes we still have a small-scale family celebration on the actual day, but the family one is the biggie.

Prepped garden beds, planted seasonal herbs, watered sod, oh what fun!! Now I am sore and have to sit at a desk all day. :-/

Grass isn't always greener. If it was so easy to have a job that doesn't require weekends or holidays wouldn't everyone have them?

Way way back in the day I worked part time for a grocery store. We were closed for the big holidays, the ones that we weren't I just planned around. Having an Easter egg hunt on Easter doesn't make it special it is your family. We had Saturday Easter egg hunts, problem solved. Heck even with having all holidays off we still have Thanksgiving on Thursday and Saturday because of out of town family.

You can sit and feel sorry for yourself or you can take control of this. Oh and Thea is right, Valentine's day isn't a holiday...thank god!

I made 3 costumes for a play that's opening in a month and a half...the kids hunted eggs yesterday because today it was supposed to storm and rain. It only had a light sprinkle and was cloudy. It would have been a good day for hunting eggs.

When you work holidays you have to plan stuff when it's convenient for you. I imagine your town had some community egg hunts, even our po-dunk town had them coming out the wah-zoo.

Every church had an open the community hunt and almost every organization in town had one too.

The kids got to hunt eggs quite a few times and I didn't even spend any money.

I've never worked a job where holidays were required. I am a public school employee, and when my kids were little, I worked in the corporate setting.

It's perfectly fine to schedule a family get together, Easter egg hunt, Christmas gift opening or anything else the day before the holiday, if that's when you'll be off.

What I missed were things like the school plays, concerts and parties that took place DURING the school day. Working a school job means that you get tons of time off during the year but have no vacation days, and I sure couldn't have used sick time and then been seen in another building within the same district that I worked for.

I'm sorry that you're feeling sad over the special times with your kids that you've missed. You're not alone. I know many people who work jobs with rotating schedules in the types of jobs that aren't ever closed like nursing, law enforcement, restaurant servers.

No, but a friend died on Easter Sunday morning (I'm a day ahead of the US), so my husband left us to drive the six hours to be with the family. It was the right thing to do, although my husband said he missed our usual Easter celebrations.

I'm sorry honey.
I like what one poster said about celebrating the day before so you don't
miss it.
Or have another egg hunt the day before or after you get home from work
Also, have your hubby video the day you are working.