In Your Easter Bonnet

Easter means a lot of things to a lot of people. It has great religious meaning to me, personally, but it also means a day to wear a beautiful hat. I frequently wear a hat to church on Sundays, but on Easter, the hat should be something new and special. If you feel the need for a new "Easter bonnet" this year, it's not too late! Beautiful hats are everywhere, and here are a few recommendations for some beautiful - and affordable - hats that you can still get in time for Easter.

This straw sunhat ($22 from Amazon) is decorated with an organza ribbon and ruffles. Shown in dark purple, it is available in a multitude of hues. 

This slightly more casual split back hat ($23 from Kohl's) is available in tan with a pink ribbon, or a more yellowish natural, with a black ribbon. 

This elegant organza Derby hat ($10 from Walmart) features a large coordinating bow, and is available in six different colors. 

This linen cloche ($24 from Amazon) has a short brim and a coordinating lace hatband and flower, and is available in teal (shown), yellow, lavender, light blue, mint, pink, and purple, as well as other darker shades. 

This pale gold hat ($30 from Amazon) features an upturned brim, a satin rosette, and organza accents. Also available in purple, red, and white. 

This delicate fascinator ($16 from Amazon) features a small veil, flowers, and feather tips, and is available in multiple colors, including yellow (shown), beige, burgundy, green, peach, orange, pink, purple, red, rose, royal blue, white, green, gold, fuschia, and more. 

This basic straw sunhat accented with a coordinating bow ($9 from Walmart) is simple but elegant, and is available in 8 colors. 

This elegant cocktail hat ($12 from JJ's House) is available in apricot (shown), white, purple, and dark navy. 

Go for a more retro look in this vintage style pancake hat ($33 from JJ's House), available in pink (shown), champagne, or black and white. 

This frothy organza picture hat ($29 from JJ's House) is accented with loops of ribbon and a rosette, and is available in royal blue (shown), pink, burgundy, and light purple. 

This wool cloche ($12 from Walmart) has a slightly flared brim and a self rosette with leaves.

This pretty pillbox hat ($24 from Amazon) features a short birdcage veil and a flat bow at the back, and is available in pink (shown), camel, ivory, red, and wine.

This simple fascinator ($15 from Walmart) can be held on with either a headband or hair clips (both included), and consists of a series of artistic loops. Available in rose red (shown), red, beige, blue, and champagne.

And to end with a bit of whimsy, this purple butterfly headband ($25 from Village Hat Shop) is a good fascinator option for anyone who doesn't like how they look in hats!

Hats off to you!

Does Anyone Still Wear a Hat?

My husband and I love dressing up. And Easter is an ideal time for dressing up, especially if you like coordinated family outfits. And especially if you love hats. I do love hats, but unless you’re unusually fashion-forward or unusually good-looking, the only occasions when you can get away with wearing a hat are Easter and the Kentucky Derby. So this year, my daughter and I wore our Easter bonnets to church.

Our congregation includes a number of older ladies who are always stylishly dressed, so I was quite surprised (and a bit saddened) to find that the two of us were the only ladies at church on Easter Sunday who were wearing hats. I had been looking forward to admiring some lovely Easter hats!

When I was a little girl, the excitement of Easter was not just the promise of candy left by the Easter bunny, but of a whole new outfit that included a dress, white shoes, white gloves, a white purse, and a hat. I always felt so grown up and elegant in my outfit, mainly because of the hat and gloves.

Another early hat memory is also from my church. I was raised in a large Baptist church in a city with a number of other Baptist churches, and once a year all the Baptist congregations would have a combined service at our church, since we had the biggest sanctuary. It was always a fascinating service for me, since it was so different from our usual Sunday service. My church was quite conservative and sedate, a style that I would learn in college to refer to as “back-seat Baptists.” No-one ever sat in the pews closest to the pulpit, the pastor never said things like, “Can I get an ‘Amen’?”, the choir sang arrangements of 100-year-old hymns, there were no instruments other than the organ and occasionally the piano, and no-one ever stood up or raised their arms or said anything from the pew other than a polite murmured, “Good morning,” in response to the pastor’s greeting. But when Calvary Baptist joined us, the church service was a whole different animal. Calvary was a Southern Baptist, mainly African-American congregation, and they ROCKED. There was clapping. There was a constant chorus of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” and “Praise Jesus!” and “Preach it, brother!” – even while the pastor was talking. ESPECIALLY when the pastor was talking. There were raised arms and people stepping out of the pew. And if the pastor asked a question and you didn’t answer it loud enough, he would ask it again and again until he got a loud enough response. To a small child, it was fascinating and intimidating all at once. But the best part of all was the hats.

The Calvary ladies would not have dreamed of going to church without a hat. It was as unthinkable as showing up in your underwear. Or even worse, PANTS. I loved to look at the ladies in their beautiful jewel-colored suits and their magnificent hats. To my small-town eyes, they looked like flock of beautiful, exotic birds.

 

 

 

My simple, white garden hat adorned with a single pink flower doesn’t even attempt to match the striking stylishness of the hats of my childhood. But I will continue to dip my toe in the pool of millinery in the hopes that others will join me in attempting to bring back the hat. Derby Day is coming, and maybe I’ll be brave enough to wear something closer to the church ladies’ hats of my memory. Maybe something like this?

 

Hmmm, I think I might not be ready for that one quite yet.

 

Finishing the Hat

This weekend was an especially busy one. My husband left for a retreat at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and got home late Saturday night. We hosted the family for Easter dinner on Sunday, plus I was teaching the pre-school Sunday school class. I had a whole list of things to get done on Friday and Saturday: take both kids to gymnastics, shop for groceries, bake Easter dessert, clean the house for company, buy treats for the Easter baskets, dye Easter eggs, set the table, put together the family’s Easter baskets, plan my Sunday school lesson and find craft supplies for it, find a pair of white shoes that fit, cook the carrots for Easter dinner, sew pink ribbon and a flower onto my Easter hat, and amidst all that, keep the kids fed and bathed. Whew! There were a few things I was tempted to drop off the list, and one of the things that almost didn’t get done was to finish trimming my hat. Would it really matter all that much if my hat had a black ribbon instead of a pink one? Or if it didn’t have a flower to match my daughter’s hat? Was it really worth the time and effort to get all our outfits so coordinated or our hats to be matching?

At the end of the day, it turned out that it was. Not only did the whole family look lovely and festive,
but the three girls in our matching dresses and hats were absolutely the hit of coffee hour after church.

Three pretty girls in three pretty hats is not a sight you see every day, and we attracted our share of attention and compliments. And the boys in their handsome matching suits got nearly as much attention. It felt really nice, not just because it’s nice to get compliments, but because it really made us feel like a family. We worked together to make our outfits work together. We both complemented and complimented each other. It was really fun to make such a public announcement that we are a family. We go together, we live together, we work together.

Yup, it was definitely worth finishing the hat.

In Our Easter Bonnets

Yesterday was Easter, so of course the entire family got all dressed up in our Easter finery and went off to church. My mom had gotten Ryan a pair of adorable yellow plaid overalls with a matching yellow polo shirt, I was wearing a pretty cream and mauve chiffon dress, and Herb had on a crisp pink shirt and a classy lavender tie.

As we walked up the steps into the church, we were admiring the families ahead of us who were also all dressed up: little girls in pastel dresses with white sweaters and shoes and little boys in shiny dress shoes and button-down shirts. Even the parents all look crisper and dressier than most Sundays.

As with most churches on Easter Sunday, we had plenty of visitors and extra family filling the pews. We sat one row closer to the front than usual because of the crowd, and a family that slipped in the pew behind us whispered, “Someone’s sitting in our regular pew! I don’t think that’s ever happened before!” Many of the children were obviously not regular church-goers, which is always amusing to me. As well as the usual hubbub and scuffling noises, one little boy a few rows behind us announced at regular intervals, “Daddy, I want to go home now!”, much to his father’s chagrin and his mother’s mortification. I was quite relieved that Ryan was on his best behavior and napped through most of the service, waking up only when the choir sang – he was laying crosswise in Herb’s lap at the time, and when the music started his eyes popped wide open, startled, and then he turned and stared at the choir, absolutely mesmerized, until they finished singing. At coffee hour after church, a fellow mom confided to me that she was tempted to point to Ryan and tell all the embarrassed parents, “Your child would behave like this if you came to church more often!” Of course, this is the first time in about 2 months that I didn’t have to take Ryan out of the service, but at least he saved his best behavior for a particularly important Sunday!

I was actually feeling quite proud of myself as we drove home from the service, with my handsome husband, my well-behaved son, and myself wearing an outfit unadorned with spit-up, my hair washed and brushed, and even wearing a bit of lipstick! (I had two big runs in my pantyhose, but they were mostly hidden by my skirt and shoes, so I wasn’t even counting that against myself.) In fact, we looked so good that we called over a neighbor to take our photo in front of the house, and as I admired the photo later in the day, I was a bit deflated as I realized that on the front door of the house, plainly obvious in the background of the photo, was our Christmas wreath and Christmas swag, very much in evidence. I was embarrassed for a moment, but then I just laughed, knowing that having my family together for a joyous Easter celebration was so much more important than taking down the Christmas decorations.

So I plan on keeping this photo close at hand, and any time I feel like I’m getting behind with the mundane things of life like laundry, or dusting, or taking down various holiday decorations, I’m going to look at it and see what a wonderful happy family is gathered in front of those Christmas decorations that have been up for five months, and I’ll remember what is truly important to me.

Happy Easter!!