Celebrating Easter with your Children

Next Sunday we will be celebrating Easter. How do you celebrate Easter? Do you put as much time into Easter as you do Christmas? I must admit that a few years ago I didn’t. Easter seems to be that one holiday that has successfully been taken over by our secular society and it makes me sad. Sad because while Christmas is so important in that God became man, but Easter is the holiday where we remember the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross so that we could be saved. If there were no Easter, we would not be able to spend eternity with our Lord.

I wondered if I didn’t celebrate because it is a hard topic to talk about with young children, after all Jesus died a horrible death on the cross. I think to some extent that is what kept me in the early years, but then I realized that yes, Jesus did die a horrible death and we need to remember the pain he went through on the cross to pay for our sin, but the real reason we celebrate Easter is that Jesus rose from the dead and while he is in heaven seated at the right hand of God, he left his spirit here on earth to live in each of us-wow! This is what I want to teach my girls. This is the holiday I want to put more time and energy into because while Easter Bunnies and Easter egg hunts are fun celebrations, without the resurrection of Jesus, we would have no Easter.

One way I found to help me teach my girls about Easter was through the Resurrection Eggs from family life. (www.familylife.com) These are a great tool to help you tell the resurrection story. Each egg contains a small object to help you tell the story. There is a booklet provided with each kit that includes a verse and a small description that you can share with your children. My girls love each year when I pull them out. They love to tell the story to each other or to guests when they come over. Last year I purchased a second kit, so each girl could have her own set. I placed number stickers on the outside of each egg to make it easier to keep the objects in the right egg. I also take them out of the plastic carton they come in and place them in different eggcups. I then use them as a centerpiece on the kitchen table and the dining room table throughout our Easter celebration. I allow my girls to play with the eggs as much as they want. I love the conversations that it brings up each year. I remember when Maddie was really too young to know what was really going on, Abigail spent so much time telling and re-telling the story using the eggs to Maddie. Maddie sat there and listened, holding each object, being so excited her big sister was sharing with her. I really cannot say enough good things about this product. I would highly recommend purchasing a set if you do not have one. But I also realize that some budgets are tight, so tomorrow I will share with you a set that I put together for my MOPS group a few years back that would be really easy to recreate on your own.

I would love to hear your ideas of how you make your Easter celebrations special for your children!