For some of us, Easter is more than just bunnies and another federal holiday. For the Christian, it s celebrating the core of our beliefs. The meat and potatoes of everything that we believe. This holiday in my opinion is the most important one because it involves the most selfless act of love to ever have existed. The death, burial and resurection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
In our home, we do not celebrate with cute little Peter Cottontails, or even decorative eggs. However, it was not always this way. When we were young parents and still growing in our faith, we decorated with the traditional Easter bunny decorations. We even played fun games and talked about the Easter bunny coming to visit, leaving a candy-filled basket behind. I mean, this is how we grew up and celebrated this holiday when we were kids. It only makes since that we share it with our kids right? As our faith grew, we became more convicted in our hearts and we decided to completely disregard the Easter bunny. We wanted to make our Easter more meaningful for our children by directing it back to Christ.
Afterall, this was an important holiday, if not THE MOST IMPORTANT HOLIDAY. We needed to create new traditions that had a deeper meaning, that stuck and that hopefully our children would pass on to their children. There are several ways we did this without completely disregarding the excitement of the holiday. Since our kids were familiar with the traditional Easter baskets every year and were pretty joyous about it, we decided to make some changes to the baskets.
Easter Basket Gifts
Instead of enormous amounts of candy and toys, we agreed that we would buy our kids things that they needed and present them within a basket or some type of container. Instead of the chocolate Easter bunny we discontinued it for a chocolate cross. Sometimes these are really hard to find so I buy them as soon as retailers put them on the shelves. Usually in early February and March. If you can't find them in the store you can always purchase them here.
Because we have a new life in Jesus and we need Jesus, we decided that the items we give our kids would be items that they need. The items we choose to get each year are usually a new outfit, sometimes shoes, water bottles, summer towels, etc. Something we plan on buying them anyway. We also give them a new toy or book. It doesn't need to be anything expensive.
Another idea that can add more meaning and direct your children to Jesus is by making the baskets even more personal for the kids. Over at Don't Mom Alone she takes the Easter basket to another level pointing it right back to the cross. I really love this idea and will be doing this with my kids this year!!!
Since the kids enjoy Easter egg hunts we decided to keep that tradition and hide eggs with candy and scriptures. You can pick and choose your own scriptures and write them down or to save time you can purchase them here. In no way do we associate the eggs with the Easter bunny. It is just a fun game that can really be played any day of the year. You can choose to do whatever you like, this is just what we do.
Easter Dinner
You can make your Easter Dinner special in many ways.
You can go out to eat or have a nice dinner at home with family and read the resurrection story from the scriptures.
If you don't have communion at church and you are a Christian, you can also do communion with your family during this time.
Another great idea to make Easter dinner special is to serve foods that symbolize the true meaning of this holiday. You can find some cute ideas over at FHE Lessons .
Your kids are going to remember the traditions and memories you make with them. Make it count! Whatever you decide, I think it's good to take the time to be still in your hearts and reflect on the true meaning of this holiday, the gift of God.
