Just like Santa Claus and stockings at Christmas, we do the Easter bunny and baskets at Easter. But over the last several years I have also been trying to develop some more meaningful traditions for our family at Easter just like we do at Christmas. (Christ's Passion is certainly as important if not more so than his birth, right?) What I like about Easter is that the pressure for gift giving is pretty much non-existent other than a cute little basket for your own kids, and besides an Easter egg hunt, there really aren't any extra activities going on like at Christmas. (Which is all great fun, but seriously exhausting!)
Here are some of my favorite resources and ideas:
This book is my staple. It has kid friendly activities for every day of Holy Week starting with Palm Sunday, as well as music suggestions, traditional Passover meal suggestions, and all kinds of stuff. Love it.
This is a concise little article to get you going, and I think the author has a book you can buy too.
An animated movie for the younger ones. (This is another goodie. Gotta love Veggie Tales.)
The night before Easter cookies.
The Easter story told through objects hidden in plastic easter eggs.
Several illustrated books to choose from, but I like this one for telling the Bible story accurately in a way young children can understand.
Last but not least, my friend Saren from The Power of Moms has spelled out her own family's simple traditions really easily on her blog which you can read about here.
Most of this stuff is from LDS people, so if you're one of those Evangelicals who doesn't think we're Christian then you might not like it - but it's really, really good! (Still trying to figure out how we're not Christian when we believe in Christ . . . anyone?)
I am going to really try to pull together a simple kid-friendly Passover meal tonight (I know, now the Jews are going what???) and spend a few minutes discussing the last supper, but this week is turning out to be a bit of a logistic nightmare with lots of extra stuff going on and SOCCER!! (I'm telling you, I am NOT a soccer mom! How do you people do the sports thing? It's all consuming. What do you do with the children not in sports? When do you eat dinner? Can you hear my frustration?)
And my favorite of the "fluff and stuff?" This movie and this book. Oh, the childhood memories!
HAPPY EASTER!!
Rachael's 1st Easter:
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