Easter Foods and Gifts- Decorate The Holiday Table With Symbols Of New Life

Easter's coming, and you're hosting Easter dinner. It will be a multi-generational celebration with very different meanings for the oldest and youngest generations. The holiday's religious solemnity will be prominent in the minds of the mature guests. Meanwhile, your younger guests will be bouncing-off-the-wall-crazy anticipating a stealth bunny hiding candy. Two moods, one meal, - your challenge: Serve holiday foods that speak to all. Here are some fun foods that decorate an Easter table with symbols of new life.

For the centerpiece, an edible basket of colorfully-decorated, chocolate bouncing bunnies makes a table decidedly adorable, especially if a chocolate peanut butter bunny sits at the head of each place setting.

Too frivolous, you wonder? Will your grandmother frown? Maybe you should go with the respectfully-tasteful milk chocolate crosses. Of course, you could always mix and match the party favors: kids get bunnies; adults get crosses. But maybe you figure that the kids will get enough chocolate in their Easter baskets.

What are your other options for decorative Easter foods? Something a little different is an Easter-decorated caramel apple. Not just a fall treat - caramel apples can be colorful and fun anytime of year. Go with elegant white chocolate for the adults and multi-colored sprinkled apples for the kids.

And don't forget the tried-and-true, never-fail, holiday standby: cookies. Colorful Easter cookies always make a table festive. Plus, cookies can come in all different shapes and styles. Children have great fun nibbling frosted sugar cookies shaped like baby animals and Easter eggs. Offered on a plate beside them can be attractive, sugar-cookie crosses and flowers. If you're really looking to please Grandma, I recommend the hand-decorated springerle cookies elegantly embossed with Christian images. People admire these hand-crafted cookies so much that instead of eating them they take them home, air dry them, and bring them back to decorate the table next year. Yes, these embossed springerle cookies can easily become holiday ornaments to pass down from one generation to the next.

And that's part of the joy of holidays, - creating and passing on family traditions. So make the Easter dinner easy, -order in a gourmet bone-in ham with specialty mustards, serve some colorful side-dishes, relax and enjoy. Happy Easter.