Please do not take offense my my question, as I do not assume that everyone feels the same.
I was just wondering if there are any Christian mom's out there that keep meaning in Easter. Last year we just skipped it all together, as our son was still too young.
This year we have been doing our family scripture time around the Savior and his resurrection. We have cut out flannel boards of the story and my 21 month old puts them up as I tell the story. I realize that both of my sons are young, but I want to build family traditions that involve our beliefs and are not just commercial or media driven.
What are some traditions in your family? What do you teach your kids about the idea of Easter bunny and the such? (Just an FYI we have are teaching our sons that St. Nicolas was a kind hearted man who helped children in his village, but that the St. Clause of today is just an image or fairy tale and does not really bring kids gifts. Gifts are thing we give to one another to show love and appreciation.)
Anyways, my husband and I feel like we have a much better idea of what to do for Christmas, then for Easter. We really want to have some meaningful traditions like we do with Christmas.
Thanks so much in advance for all your ideas and thoughts.
--- such a great question, Sarah--- here are some ideas:
Easter is about God making us new, and holy ( clean) and
whole--- how about finding an older person or struggling young single parent in your area ( your church community could sure help you--- or the local food bank) and clean up someone's yard - or take them a really nice basket of flowers to plant---
Blessings, for your sincerity and thoughtfullness. Tent City would LOVE some home-made cookies or treats --
My sister always has our big family dinner and an egg hunt for the kids on Saturday before Easter. They keep Sunday for church and the religious aspects of the holiday, as well as a special dinner for their own family. My church has a breakfast for families prior to the service and then eggs hunts for the little kids after the service.
You can make a cool retelling of the story using an egg carton and plastic easter eggs. Inside each egg is something related to the story, such as a thorn, a tiny sword, a piece of cloth cut in two about the curtain, coins for the 30 pieces of silver, a jewel to symbolize the women who stuck with him, a wooden cross, there are various versions. The last egg, of course, is empty. What's so great about this is, after the first time, the kids will tell the story to you! I'm sure if you googled you would find a version, or make up your own based on the aspects of the story that are important to you.
Some people put dead flowers in a vase on good friday and replace with fresh on Easter.
Regarding secular aspects of the holiday, perhaps you could say that at the same time Christians are celebrating Easter, many people are simply celebrating the advent of Spring. So such things as the easter bunny and egg hunts have more to do with being happy that Spring is finally here than Easter.
In my view, it is no betrayal of Christ to celebrate Spring -- he created it, after all.
I appreciate your question. I've been seeking to make this season meaningful, too, and if we don't do this intentionally, the season will just continue to be filled with our busy daily lives.
Last year I bought a little kit called "Resurrection Eggs" which have plastic eggs that a child can open once a day. Inside is a little symbol to spark meaningful discussion on the events leading up to Easter. It comes with some reading material too. It's a good preschool/early elementary tool. You can find it at a local Christian bookstore or online.
In general, we do very little with the whole egg idea around this time of year. I don't want my kids' first response to the word Easter to be "Eggs!"
I just read a book called "The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year" by Kimberlee Conway Ireton, published by InterVarsity Press. It's a wonderful, practical resource for making all church holidays meaningful. She's a local author, too!
By the way, we also recently found a terrific Children's Bible that tells the whole story from creation-present with a real focus on Jesus. It's called "The Big Picture Story Bible" by David Helm. Very well done!
You might want to do some research into the meaning of the Easter symbols (Bunnies, eggs, lillies). I remember learning that eggs represent new life. A lot of Christian symbols were borrowed from pagen symbols. We are Catholic and intend to introduce these meanings as Teresa gets old enough to understands. I am still working on what we will do. How was Easter introduced to you as a child? To me, Easter has special baking that was done (Ex: Babka: a Polish egg bread). Just do a little research and find what you feel comfortable with and enjoy the joy this season is ment to bring.
My husband and I are of similar mind on this topic. Since my husband loves history we love to tell our children stories of the past and how different cultures celebrate specially marked holidays (St Nick, Estardia,ect. even St. Patrick, Reformation/ Halloween and Allsaints Day). Keeping in mind we should strive to do all we do Joyfully unto the Lord (aka eating the Turkey which God provides, giving gifts to celebrate Jesus birthday remembering that He gave us the greatest gift of all, dying empty eggs to remember the empty tomb, and eating Candy because His story is the sweetest story of all Time). Even the Apostle Paul knew the culture and took full advantage of the mind set of people and used this to Glorify the Lord. Its a great way for children to interact with others during holidays, expressing their love and knowledge for Jesus.
So we teach our children the Truth of the Holiday, How Christ fits in and celebrate in Love, eating candy to the Lord.
I am so glad you asked this on Mamasource. I hope you will get great responses, and I hope God uses your question to touch people's hearts!
My daughter is 3 1/2 and my son is 8 months. When my daughter was about a year old, I got some plain white easter eggs that you can put stuff in. I wrote some Bible verses about the resurrection and death of christ in permanent ink on the outside. Then I found an object having to do with each verse. For example, I put a small round rock in the egg that says "The stone was rolled away!" I have about 8 eggs, and I also put an Easter candy in each one. Every day, I let her open an egg. I read the verse on the outside, she handles the object that goes with the verse and we talk about it while she eats her treat. I keep refilling the eggs and repeating for several weeks before easter. I also have a little easter tree with little egg decorations; she hangs a new decoration on the tree each day--or as often as I remember to do this. She usually reminds me because she wants her daily jelly bean. I always ask her what the egg means and she's learning the answer: New Life!
Well, you can still color eggs because eggs represent new life and they were a part of the Passover celebration. I would distance myself a bit more from bunnies as they are a pagan representation, but you could replace them with butterflies, which many churches use as a symbol of Easter.
Easter comes from the word Estra who was a pagan godess of fertility. Thus we get the word estrace in hormones. It connects because of the fertility of that time of year and all the new birth. Jesus is also included in that new birth as a new life, so all the bunnies and chicks signifies new birth as does the resurrection. What I add is open my large family bible to the resurection picture and lay it out on my coffee table with a candle at the head so no one that comes over doesn't forget what Easter is really about.
Hello. We have always told our son that the easter bunny and santa claus were games that people play around the holidays (He didn't even know who they were until he started school). You could check out Focus on the Family's website. I think they have Christ filled ideas on how to celebrate Christ on these important holidays. God bless you
I admit it isn't easy to find Easter kid items that don't have Easter bunny.
Here are some of what we have tried for the three Easters with kids. Resurrection eggs at the end of the Easter egg hunt. Giving books that explain the Christian message of Easter. "What is Easter?" and a second one I can't remember are board books at Barnes and Noble. "The Easter Cave" is one my daughter loves year round. Be picky about the books or buy springtime/baby animal books instead of Easter egg hunt. Giving Veggie tales in an Easter basket.
Plus we go to church and try to explain the message.
We are christians also with a very conservative view :).
What we do for Easter is the night before we die eggs which I always did as a kid and then we sit down and explaing the reason for Easter. We explain that Jesus died and then rose again on the third day which is why we celebrate Easter. We also explain why he died and then we have question time for the kids my are 5 and 3 now and we started this when my oldest was 2 and at two she was walking around telling people what Easter was about.
We do this the night before b/c we go to church on Sunday morning and then afterwards we always have a big get together at my husbands parents house.
We do the whole Easter basket thing and an egg hunt but we always make sure that we explain to them the real reason for Easter. The morning of Easter we have their Easter baskets sitting on the table when they come down to eat their breakfast. We sometimes do a mystery hunt where they have to find things. My mother in law gave us a resurrection egg set that has the story in each egg and goes through the death and resurrection. I think it was a little over my kids heads but they enjoyed getting the things out of the eggs and holding them and touching them for example when they talked about the nails going into Jesus' hands there was alittle nail in the egg.
I hope that this helps we do the same for Christmas b/c kids can get so wrapped up in what did you get me that we keep reminding them why we are celebrating. We do let them see the bunny and Santa but explain to them who and what they are and that people have built them up to who they are and that they are just something fun but not real. Hope this helps. Hope you find some fun
Hi Sarah
We started teaching right from the start that our Easter was the resurection of Christ and the easter bunny is a fun way to find eggs and play games. The story of easter we celebrate with our family is church-based and slowly we have started to add (for our older son with questions) the history of the melding of druid and celtic traditions that have created the bunny/egg and fertility symbols of easter.
We still have the concept of Santa at our house and teach the birth of Christ as holy, but we really get into Christmas through our church and don't worry about the confusion of the two concepts.
Just last night I was listenig to Focus on the Family and they were talking about resurrection easter eggs. I would try their website to get information. I think it's Focusonthefamily.com or org. Try it. Hope this helps some.
Easter has always been a faith based holiday in our family. That doesn't mean we don't do the Easter bunny and egg hunts, but as the kids got older we explained the relationship between the Easter eggs and the resurrection. The symbols of spring are re-birth, promise of life everlasting. Lent, the 40 days in the wilderness, Palm Sunday, the events of Holy Week and then Easter Sunday. The commericial 'Easter' has ties to the sacred Easter; and use the opportunities to teach without preaching. Your babies are very young to truly grasp the concepts, but live your faith, it's woven in the fabric of your lives. Your children will grow up with the solid foundation upon which to build their faith, their relationship.
I speak from my childhood experience, as my son is only 9 months old. Each year, instead of Easter baskets, my mom did "spring baskets" on the first day of spring. We would wake up to a basket filled with goodies, such as most children might receive on Easter morning. She wanted to totally separate that sort of thing from Easter without letting us feel deprived. We really liked it! We always knew the Easter bunny wasn't real and that that wasn't the real meaning of Easter.
I think you're right on with your visually telling the story of Easter with your children. I remember that Easter always felt very festive in my home growing up, as we wore our Easter clothing, spent a lot of time at church that morning, and then had a great meal at home afterwards. The festive atmosphere really made it feel like it was something very special that we were celebrating!
We do the same thing with Christmas and have struggled with Easter. We currently do not currently attend a church but when our children were younger we did and we the plastic eggs with items in them that represent Christs life and death on the cross. Each night we would open an egg see the symbol and the scripture and then discuss it - using the childrens bible and stories we had. As for the bunny - we never even entertained the idea - they received a basket of goodies as a tradition from us. It's worked well and it was never an issue as they grew up. They always knew there was no such thing as an Easter Bunny.
I have one suggestion, videos of the resurection. I know that there are cartoon versions of this, I suggest since your boys are so young. Check Christian bookstores and/or sites!
I agree that they should know the real meaning of Easter. But I think it is fun to let them have a little of the comercial side of it too. Somebody had suggested the SPRING BASKET, that is a great idea. So maybe tie in the comerial aspect as celebrating Spring.
Hello Sarah, my name is Stephanie. We too are a Christian family trying to teach our children the true meaning of these holidays.However we are new to it and our oldest is 12, so this year we are making muffins to represent the tomb and putting marshmallows in the middle to represent jesus. When you cook them and open them up the marshmallow has melted away thus representing the resurrection. Just a cute way to teach the little one's. I would love to hear more on how you broach the subject of Easter Bunny and the like. We spend our Easter mornings in church, and will probably eat lots of candy!!!