General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAnyone here remember when every little girl wore her best dress and shoes to church on Easter?
AJT
(5,240 posts)procon
(15,805 posts)My mother was a fake christian, in it to be admired in her nice clothes and hobnob with the patrician class, she'd buy us kids new clothes and herd us to the church like we were tricked out show dogs. I still fondly remember the Easter I finally refused to be exploited and just told her, "No" and went skateboarding with my friends.
She stopped dragging us to her show and tell events after that.
GP6971
(31,228 posts)or if they could afford it, went out and bought a new outfit.
I remember a lot of emphasis on hats too
Kittycow
(2,396 posts)My parents were very frugal, so my dress was usually a cast-off from my "rich" cousin.
I'm still salty about all the hand-me-downs, but I found out as an adult that my dad invested all the saved money. So now they have a comfortable retirement in their '90's and a decent estate.
But the little girl inside me is still bent out of shape over it
MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)Actually we had to wear hats every Sunday to Mass. Women had to wear the lace head covering. I wanted to wear one of those, but then head coverings were passe by the time I was old enough.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)I grew up Catholic too and there were never any such restrictions in my diocese.
MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)Women had to cover their heads. They could wear hats or veil-type coverings. Girls did not wear the lacy veils, only the hats. I wanted to wear the lace veils.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)suffragette
(12,232 posts)I did have a church dress. We were poor so I only wore it on Sundays. It was a light yellow, frothy little number. I was quite the tomboy, but I did like that dress.
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)That makes sense.
Kittycow
(2,396 posts)It was called a mantilla. I liked it. This was in Bend OR when it was a small town.
Once I pinned a humongous red bow on the back of my head and thought it quite chic but my classmates had a different opinion. Humphh!
I remember pinning the Kleenex on your head too!
MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)Vatican II hit before I was confirmed. About 4th or 5th grade. No meatless Fridays, no covered heads, no Confirmation names (I was mad about that one ... wanted to take Veronica or Joan).
maryellen99
(3,790 posts)This was back in the 1980s. Mine was Elizabeth.
MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)Savannah Diocese - I lived in Macon.
maryellen99
(3,790 posts)MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)My parents met at U of D after WWII.
maryellen99
(3,790 posts)MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)That school had a great influence on our family's politics.
Kittycow
(2,396 posts)I would be mad too, not to have a Confirmation name.
Hey, maybe I can get some Lourdes Water off of eBay and be cured of my chronic pain!
MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)Kittycow
(2,396 posts)I think that I had just seen "The Song of Bernadette" film on TV and was enamored of Jennifer Jones as St. Bernadette.
I know my mother complained about my choice and fifty years later, she's still complaining about something. (Her last complaint was Hillary tripping in India. )
MLAA
(17,348 posts)MaryMagdaline
(6,858 posts)bobbieinok
(12,858 posts)Chemisse
(30,820 posts)I always dressed my little girls up too, at least when they were little and enjoyed it, even if we were only going to dinner at the grandparents' house.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,924 posts)It was kind of a big deal. We wore white gloves and a hat, too. I just ran across such a photo from the '60s (I was a teenager then) in which the whole family was dressed up for Easter. Dad and the little brothers were wearing suits and ties and Mom had her hat and gloves (which I had rejected by that time). That might have been the last time I dressed up for Easter, but before that it was what we did every year, after finding all the hidden eggs.
tblue37
(65,502 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,228 posts)CrispyQ
(36,547 posts)We also had a lot of spring birthdays that fell on Easter & my mom made her famous chocolate coconut bunny cake.
Cartoonist
(7,323 posts)Arkansas Granny
(31,537 posts)it appraised for big bucks.
jayschool2013
(2,314 posts)that you're reading a newspaper.
TEB
(12,934 posts)My wife getting our daughters ready and they wore their Easter dresses.
Tatiana
(14,167 posts)Yes, that was me!
tblue37
(65,502 posts)I am swooning with envy. My mother would never let me have pink or white patent leather shoes because they would just get scuffed up. Same for coats: always dark. (Not that we wore coats on Easter, no matter how cold it was.)
I am going to spend the day dreaming of pink patent leather shoes.
Kittycow
(2,396 posts)It's not too late to score a pair, but in my case they would have to be pink patent leather orthopedic shoes.
Now, there's a vision!
Pink walker, pink cane...we can do this.
Historic NY
(37,457 posts)and a hanky for my pocket. We would go to church and to my grandmothers with an Easter lily.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)spanone
(135,914 posts)rusty fender
(3,428 posts)that year my mom had to work and my dad took us kids shopping for Easter outfits. I chose pants and sneakers
Runningdawg
(4,527 posts)Our church had wood benches, no pews. No A/C either, just a few fans. I remember sitting on a stack of crinolines on those wooden benches with the sweat running down my legs and how bad it made me itch. Dad jerking me outside for failing to sit still was a blessing.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Christians and not all Christians participated.
These days, of course, "best" dresses are a lot less frilly and ostentatiously feminine due to cultural changes related to new roles for females. Also, because of technical advances, girls' everyday clothes are a lot nicer on average so the differences between everyday and best aren't so marked.
Here's a smile from Atlanta. This was Saturday, actually.
LAS14
(13,789 posts)StarryNite
(9,464 posts)crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)They're as girly as can be and most of their dresses are pretty frilly. The netting (tutu type material) for skirts is very popular with them.
Anything they can wear to make them look more like (DIsney) princesses the better.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)by buying her granddaughter frilly clothes in the now 7-year-old's favorite bright pinks and purples. As you say, Disney princesses.
I'm just a step- greatgrand, one among various grands. But I haven't done bimboism in any years, so I step lightly subversively, but step. "Just sitting around being admired as a princess is boooring!" This winter's pink fur-trimmed boots, given happily because she wanted them, also came with a book about being a zoologist because she likes zoos.
crazycatlady
(4,492 posts)There's a picture book series called "Fancy Nancy" that the girls are obsessed with. Everything has to be 'fancy like in the books.'
My older niece won't wear pants ("they're for boys'). She does have leggings she wears under dresses/skirts.
I will admit to wearing dresses/skirts more just because they're more comfortable. I have a hard time finding pants that fit me right, especially with the 'ankle' pants so trendy right now. The last thing I want to do is rock the "I'm 8 years old and just had a growth spurt" look.
Bayard
(22,192 posts)New dress, little flowered headband kind of thing, little white gloves, and patent leather shoes.
One year, I was forced to be in the choir that Sunday. So had the heavy robe on top of the Easter finery. Passed out cold from the heat. The preacher dragged me by my feet out from under the choir half curtain, and my embarrassed Dad marched down front to carry me out.
Ah, good times.....``
csziggy
(34,139 posts)Keeping them clean was bad enough, especially since everyone wanted to hand kids chocolate, but by the time I was ten no women's white gloves were large enough for my hands. Mom went nuts trying to find gloves for me - at ten my hands were strangled by too small gloves. The next year Mom simply gave up and I was conspicuously the only female over two that did not have gloves on in church.
By the time I was twelve the church was air conditioned and my allergies to fragrances got me out of church - by the time the first prayer started, I was sneezing constantly and would be sent out to sit in the car. I spent a lot of Sundays sitting in the car reading which I found a lot more enlightening than the sermons from our minister!
Duppers
(28,127 posts)Someone should've thought about the temp being too high for kids burdened with those robes.
LAS14
(13,789 posts)democratisphere
(17,235 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)at one point, my mother sewed and made the dresses. You got shoes, too, which were patent leather and shiny and white or even red.
And the hat. You had to have a hat.
By the time I was a teen, this was all gone (late 1970s)
Dream Girl
(5,111 posts)lkinwi
(1,477 posts)PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,920 posts)it was one of only two times I got new clothes. The other was for back-to-school.
Otherwise it was hand-me-downs or a quick trip to a second hand store.
dhol82
(9,353 posts)Always got a new dress for the occasion.
Finally convinced my mother I was not needed there when I was 16.
BigmanPigman
(51,646 posts)Dad never went and when my sister and I were 10 we were given a choice and we said, "NO!" After that we were all atheists, slept late on weekends (no more CCD), weren't shamed for not giving as much money as the next person on the published and circulated collection list and no more making up sins to tell the priest in confession since we were good kids and didn't even do anything "bad" that often.
dhol82
(9,353 posts)It was suitably called Our Lady Of All Sorrows.
It was a real orthodox one with no pews and women on the left and men on the right.
Some of the old ladies used to kneel on the wooden floor just to make it more interesting.
The service was quite lovely and interesting. Since the church was in the city the parishioners walked around the block with choir singing and everyone holding candles. In the old country you would walk around the church itself three times.
Anyhow, I was an accommodating child and it was a fun adventure for the time I chose to go.
BigmanPigman
(51,646 posts)I kind of like it as far as an outsider looking in. It seems like something a director would throw into a movie scene for extra "atmosphere".
dhol82
(9,353 posts)It was observational theater.
You could walk in and out whenever you wanted - cross yourself the correct way (right to left) and you were good to go. People congregated in the vestibule or out in the street. It was very fluid except for the old believers.
And it would make a great scene in a movie. Remember being in Odessa once and noticing a baptism going on in a church. Really great theater.
Greybnk48
(10,178 posts)to go with our dresses and paten leather MaryJanes. Beautiful coats too! The only Holiday my mom did that. I think she was keeping up with the Jones'.
OhNo-Really
(3,985 posts)Innocent times back then in Maine.
mcar
(42,426 posts)Hats too. I loved it!
milestogo
(16,829 posts)Go to church to see everyone and be seen.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,474 posts)Assuming your nostalgic memories were universal erases many experiences that were just as important. "Remember when" is fun, and can also reshape the reality of the past.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)What the hell are you trying to convey???
Of course that time existed. Just like the one where men wore ties to Church, the Mass was said in Latin and women wore veils.
Some of us were around and remember pre. Vatican II.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,474 posts)Sure, it happened. But saying "every girl" did so is inaccurate, and an example of how nostalgia erases other valid experiences.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)And I would also say that among those who DID regularly attend a Christian Church, this was the norm.
I don't buy a Kantian approach to this one. Sorry.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,474 posts)catrose
(5,075 posts)And the dress was always blue to match my skin, because invariably a cold front came through on Easter.
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)about an Easter outfit was white crocheted gloves. And a hat of some kind (my family was Catholic). Now I'm being nagged by people in my apt. building to go to church. No thanks.
sinkingfeeling
(51,484 posts)Kirk Lover
(3,608 posts)anneboleyn
(5,611 posts)families (a few catholic families that really never attended church and some (sort of) Episcopalians like ours that went every ten years or so for a wedding or funeral). I think there were a few families that went to church on Easter, and some did do presents of candy/baskets, but every girl wearing a dress to church...no way. This was in the 80s/90s.
maryellen99
(3,790 posts)Demovictory9
(32,488 posts)Awsi Dooger
(14,565 posts)I attend church only on Christmas Eve and Easter. This morning it was an overflow crowd in Coral Gables, to the point they were scrambling to find enough folding chairs to place in the aisles alongside the pews. Throughout the service I noted kids who were dressed immaculately. A family nearby had perhaps a 10 year old boy in a 3-piece suit alongside two sisters in dresses as described earlier in this thread. Classic Easter finest.
In contrast, the people who were dressed very casually were millennials without children. Late in the service they had a greet your neighbor type of thing where everyone stood up and was supposed to exchange pleasantries with people nearby. The girl in front of me who turned around to shake hands was wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt. Her husband or boyfriend was wearing a rather shabby golf shirt that was not tucked in.
Hamlette
(15,412 posts)LAS14
(13,789 posts)Assuming they celebrate Easter.
Drahthaardogs
(6,843 posts)Thus no reason.
malaise
(269,237 posts)made with the same cloth. We had to match and the styles varied by age. Then there were the hats and ribbons, shoes and socks.
lunamagica
(9,967 posts)MuseRider
(34,136 posts)and my mother made my clothes, my two brothers little suit suits, her dress and my father's suit. My dad would give my mom and me an orchid, one that was too old to sell and would end up behind his store in the dumpster. 😁 💖
Solly Mack
(90,795 posts)I vividly recall my first pair of jeans.
Dresses to school, that is. I had "play" clothes.
Dresses for Easter, as well. Ruffles and crinolines.
I was forced to wear ruffle butt stockings and a crinoline to school once. My teacher took me around to all the other teachers and lifted my dress to show off both the ruffles and the crinoline. Because they found it "too cute" that I dressed that way. This was shortly after one Easter.
I was not amused.
marlakay
(11,524 posts)Purse and white gloves. Very proper little church girl....
Codeine
(25,586 posts)in certain parts of the country and in certain socioeconomic groups did this.
JI7
(89,281 posts)At least that's what i see among others since i am not christian. They do all fun stuff with easter meal, egg hunt etc but no church.
Raine
(30,541 posts)and being a girly girl I loved it!
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)So much fun. The girls loved it and everyone at church did too.
llmart
(15,563 posts)did not wear her best dress and shoes to church. My parents weren't churchgoers and we were poor, so even if we would have gone to church, there would be no new clothes and shoes for Easter. We did recognize the holiday and got Easter baskets with candy (my favorite part), and Mom would make a nice ham dinner, but no church.
I actually always felt a little "different" since I grew up in a small town and most everyone went to church of one sort or another. However, very few Catholics in our town and no Catholic church, so wasn't exposed to that until I dated a Catholic. I so wanted to wear a mantilla. LOL
kskiska
(27,050 posts)Women wore white gloves, too. I think it was Manpower temp agency that gave an employee who'd attained a certain number of hours a pair of white gloves. This was in the early 60s.