Easter is almost upon us and Dh and I are really pondering how we want to celebrate. I feel as if, with Pk being 2.5, it's time to establish some routines about what Easter in our family is going to be. Obviously, there are pre-existing family traditions that will continue (e.g., church on Thursday, Friday and twice on Sunday including the sunrise service followed by breakfast at the church, roasted leg of lamb with brussel sprouts, asparagus and mint sauce, egg decorating and a visit with Gran and Momis).
On the other hand, there are other things that we are considering. First of all, I have found some wonderful crafts for those who are Christian and want to keep the focus on Christ as opposed to bunnies and spring -
resurrection cookies, He has risen rolls, Hill of Calvary garden, Calvary crosses, and for Palm Sunday, we are thinking of making these decorated palms. I bought us a set of resurrection eggs that we are going to share on Easter. We are also pondering doing a modified Seder. There is a great outline of how to do one in this book, which I LOVE:
I have found a sample menu with some wonderful sounding recipes at a blog I really enjoy, The Homespun Heart. We've also found some good reading material that, by some miracle, I found at HomeSense so each book was $3.99!
I have stumbled across some wonderful blogs with great ideas for aiding to build faith in children such as Mustardseeds, Ramblings of a Crazy Woman, and The Homespun Heart. I found some interesting craft ideas here, as well, although the free section doesn't have all that much, the best stuff appears to be in the members area. I also found some good printables here.
I have stumbled across some wonderful blogs with great ideas for aiding to build faith in children such as Mustardseeds, Ramblings of a Crazy Woman, and The Homespun Heart. I found some interesting craft ideas here, as well, although the free section doesn't have all that much, the best stuff appears to be in the members area. I also found some good printables here. Now, here comes the dilemma. Dh and I hadn't really talked much about what we are going to do regarding the Easter Bunny. I know that some Christian parents are opposed to Santa and the Easter Bunny as they shift the focus away from the faith importance of these celebrations. In terms of Christmas, we don't find that as hard. In our minds, Santa and Baby Jesus can both play a part in our celebration, as long as we are responsible about how we manage things. We had pondered doing a St. Nicholas celebration on Dec. 6th (I think that is the date it is supposed to be) that is the "Santa" part of the holiday and then Christmas remains only a celebration of Christ's birth. I will be honest, we just ran out of time and hadn't really made up our minds this year.
For some reason, the whole "Easter Bunny" thing is a lot harder. Our inclination is probably to just leave the Easter Bunny out. Our Easter celebration is so full anyway, we really don't need anything else. We debated just giving Pk an Easter gift and leaving it at that. My parents had a great tradition of giving us something living as a symbol of the resurrection each year (e.g., a plant, a fish, one year we even got hamsters, which we thought was amazing) although there was always a bit of chocolate. We never did an egg hunt and the Easter Bunny never hid the chocolate (although I suspect that had more to do with a dog who loved chocolate and had a death wish and my parents not needing to celebrate Easter with a huge vet bill). On the other hand, how would we explain that the Easter Bunny comes for other children but not for Pk? Again, the logical thing would be to just "out" the bunny but in doing that, we put ourselves at risk of her spilling the beans to everyone else and while we don't really want to have the bunny ourselves, that doesn't mean that we want to ruin it for others. I don't know what we will do. I don't have many readers here (and Kittenpie, I know this one doesn't really apply to you) but if anyone has advice, I would love to know what you do. We need ideas.
We do an Easter basket and egg hunt with our girls, but don't tell them the Easter bunny brought it (or hid the eggs). I guess we take the same approach with Santa...they know about both characters, but they know they aren't real. We also explain to them that some kids do think they are real so they shouldn't ruin it for others. We homeschool, though, so their interaction with other kids is more limited.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, it wasn't something I gave much thought to until this year when Sydney was almost 5. Younger than that, we just didn't really talk about Santa or the Easter bunny. I find Santa easier to swallow than the Easter bunny...Santa is a person and the Easter bunny is, well, a big bunny - not quite as believable.
Every year I keep meaning to buy me some resurrection eggs, and every year I forget! Oh well...I just got the recipe for resurrection cookies and I think that will be a fun experiment to do.
We have the Parable of the Lily book and really like it.
Don't know if that's any help, but that's what we do. I want the girls to know why we are celebrating Easter. It can be fun and silly (with egg hunts and chocolate bunnies), but I want them to begin to understand the significance of the holiday since we are building our lives on Christ's resurrection!
That really helps, Jill. I think we will probably do what you do - just kind of leave the Easter Bunny alone (or treat it like any make believe character) but Pk is out in the world a fair bit so we will need to really be firm about the fact that it's not her job to "out" him to people. I appreciate hearing what you do!
ReplyDeleteFrom an outside point of view with no knowledge to speak of here, so ignore if it's ridiculous, but I'm wondering - it seems like perhaps he could be seen as a messenger spreading the joy and good news?
ReplyDeleteOf course, I value your opinion. It's not so much that we need signficance for him (although you have good suggestions), it's more that the question is whether we want to even be bothered. I don't know why but Dh and I both think that Santa seems more worth the effort. I find the Easter Bunny really empty. I think, deep down, this is probably laziness on my part, too. Easter is so busy - do I really want to be bothered setting up one more thing to fit in (and to have to be duplicitious about).
ReplyDeleteI have no ideas on the Eater Bunny. Where did he even come from? The only thing we found this year were Resurrection cookies. As you make the cookies you talk about the events of Good Friday. (ie-when you beat the nuts in this recipe you talk about the beating of Jesus.) Then you 'seal up' the cookies in the oven overnight (like sealing the tomb). When you take them out in the morning they are hollow-empty just like Jesus' tomb. I thought this was a great way to share the Easter story and make a great memory. What kid wouldn't be thrilled to eat cookies for breakfast?
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