This morning Alden woke up giddy with anticipation at the arrival of the Easter Bunny. After weeks of festive preparation including baking cookies, making easter cakes, sewing her easter dress and dyeing eggs, the day had finally arrived!

Actually, that’s all a lie. I ran around like crazy at 8pm on Saturday night looking for egg dye, and it was completely sold out in all of Chestertown. The easter basket was given to us by a friend of my mother’s, already chock full of treats, and the egg hunt was planned by good friends Uncle D and Aunt Annie from across the street. All I did was all that my mother did, back when she was in charge of Easter baskets. Can you guess what my contribution was?

Alden spotted it right away.

“Doritos?!” she said. “What are DORITOS doing in my Easter basket?” Well, the tradition began back when I was probably around 6 years old. Because of my dad being a general curmudgeon and my mom being Japanese, we had never really had Easter baskets. My mom’s best friend discovered this somehow, and insisted that my mom get us Easter baskets. Mom had never heard of such a thing, and so asked what she was supposed to do with them. “Fill them up with treats and that easter grass stuff.” So the next Easter rolled around, and we each got a basket with a family-size bag of Doritos in it, nestled in some easter grass. We were ecstatic. There is a photo somewhere of the three of us, grinning ear to ear, holding up our big bags of Doritos.

Alden is not so easily charmed. “Jeezus!” she said, “these things have like 40 grams of fat in them.”

Bring on the sugar!