Fusion Easter

From Romanian traditions to something entirely my own

Sometimes I do things that don’t make sense in the moment, but later they fall into place.

Since moving to Netherlands and leaving my birthplace behind, I’ve gone through many transformations. In the beginning, I rejected almost everything from my country. It felt like something I needed to outgrow, a past version of myself that no longer fit. I was focused on building a life, climbing, fitting in, chasing what I thought I was supposed to want. In the process, I set aside more than I should have. Traditions, religion, even parts of how I carried myself slowly faded into the background.

Christmas became optional and so did Easter. I told myself it was practical. Romanian Easter follows the Orthodox calendar, so it comes later than the Catholic one. There was no need to celebrate twice. But the truth was simpler than that. I couldn’t cook like my mom and if I couldn’t recreate what I had known, it felt easier not to try at all.

Romanian traditions revolve around food and memory lives inside those rituals.

I remember Easter mornings after the night of the Resurrection, my parents waiting for me with a red egg in a cup of water, symbolizing the blood of Jesus. I was meant to wash with it for health and rosy cheeks. I was never the first to wake up, but as an only child, the ritual was always mine. After weeks of fasting, we would sit down to everything my mom had prepared, dishes she had spent days cooking, always under pressure, always carrying it all on her own. The smells, the warmth of the kitchen, the quiet hum of the house in early morning hours, all of it is etched in me.

As a child, I felt a quiet tension around these holidays. Something meant to be sacred and joyful often came with stress. My mom wanted everything to be perfect, especially with her own parents watching and she gave everything she had. But alongside that tension, there was beauty.

I remember the smell of food filling the house, the small tastes she would give me, which felt like the best thing in the world. My dad choosing the Christmas tree with pride, even in the chaos of those years and me decorating it, slowly eating the same candies every season, one by one. I remember the cold mornings, the bite of the wind on my face as I ran outside, coat zipped tight, to join the rituals.

Looking back, I think my mom carried too much and it spilled over into everything. Somewhere inside, I made a quiet promise that I would not live the same way. I thought I would keep the traditions alive in a softer, more balanced form, but when motherhood came, it brought something unexpected. It brought distance instead.

Before my son, holidays felt empty. They began to feel like something reserved for people with full families, for lives that looked whole from the outside. Sometimes I would spend them with friends, in warm and generous homes, but at the end of the night I would get back on my bike, ride through cold, quiet streets and wonder what it all meant.

When Mini came into my life, I tried to create something traditional. I made a Christmas tree for a few years, trying to recreate a feeling I thought I was supposed to pass on. But slowly, I stopped forcing it and accepted that my life was different. A single mother, no family around, building something from scratch in Amsterdam.

So we began traveling to South Africa, and something in me softened. Christmas on the beach, dinners by the pool, kids running freely in the sun. It wasn’t what I grew up with, but it felt light, open and possible.

Back in Amsterdam, I noticed that when I forced a Christmas tree, it didn’t land, but when I took it down, my son would cry. So I shifted. One year, I covered the walls and windows with lights instead. No tree, no pressure, just warmth during dark winter days, something that could be felt from the outside too. He loved it, and it became ours.

Now it’s Easter. The guilt is gone, but the question of what to do remains. This year, we’re making a collage of his favorite artist. He’s growing, becoming his own person and I’d rather build traditions around that, around creating something together, around showing him that even if he ever finds himself alone, there are ways to make moments feel full.

.Instead of following tradition, I took him for an Easter egg hunt under the moonlight in the park behind our house. He loved it and told me he wants to do this for every party. So that’s what we’ll do. This is our tradition now, to stay creative in front of life and to enjoy what makes us different.

As I write this story of course I can get a bit nostalgic, but I’m not keen on replicating the past and the love I have for my roots has nothing to do with that. I know how to build a home, I know how to build a family, but I can’t live in what’s already gone. I carry the sweet memories with me and then move forward. I have to make my own now, in a world that has changed so much since I was growing up and luckily creativity has been given to me in abundance.

I feel different from anyone else in so many ways, so I might as well just be me. The cold mornings, the warm kitchens, the chaos, the calm, they are all with me and yet they no longer define how I celebrate, how I live, how I love. I define that now.