a soul-satisfying easter

For the last few years, I have struggled to find a fun and relevant way to celebrate easter with our family. We'll get together with our normal fellowship, of course, but since the major influence of our faith is within our family unit, I've hoped to create some special traditions.

[Side note: I do love the easter egg hunt and make sure it happens every year - but our particular preference is not to to it on Resurrection Sunday. We have lots of other suitable times where we can all get together and do it, so Resurrection Sunday is reserved, well, just for the Resurrection.]

Maundy Thursday rolled around, and I hadn't so much even planned a thing with the fam. (I was planning to plan, but it just hadn't happened yet.) It just so happened that I was reading a book Treasuring God in our Traditions, by Noel Piper that week. She had some interesting ideas that sparked my imagination and gave me great food for thought.

So in the interest of hoping to spark some ideas in you (not that anyone was as bad at planning as me, but just in case there's one or two of you out there...) I'm going to share how we did things this year.

On Good Friday, we took some cheap (as in $.10 for a package) sponge things:

...and cut them into the shape of the bread and the wine (thanks carrie - I totally stole this from you!). We brushed paint on them and used them as fabulously cute stampers. We read the story of the Passover feast and brushed up on its origins.

We talked about Jesus' body being broken and his blood being poured out.
Then on Saturday, Josh and I took turns reading (from the International Childrens Version) the entire account from the Triumphal Entry to the Ascension. Yes, it took a while. The girls were moderately still, but I told them they had to listen carefully because there would be a test.

After the reading, we took beads of five colors and laced them, each on their own color of pipe cleaner: purple, red, black, white, gold.

Then in the afternoon, test time came.

Test time consisted of a wide variety of objects that represented a different event or principle in the story we had read earlier. There were palm branches, the beads on pipe cleaners, a wash cloth, a cross, etc.

The girls had to put them in chronological order and then we tied them to a tree branch we'd grabbed during play time a few days before. As we were working on this project, Emma said several times, "Mommy, this is really fun!" I was thankful that it seemed fun to them, and that they retained and processed so much of the story.

They did a great job putting them in order and were sad to hear that the final two were a surprise and they'd have to wait until Resurrection Morning to tie them on. Everyone took turns guessing what might be used to symbolize the resurrection.
Resurrection Morning came and we got to eat Resurrection Cake for breakfast. What's that? You've never heard of Resurrection Cake? Well, it's just like it sounds: Cake you eat on Resurrection Morning! =) [Actually, in Noel Piper's book, she talked about how they always made a lamb cake to eat after easter lunch...and I was about to make a lamb cake, but it just felt very disturbing to think about cutting and eating a lamb cake. So, in the end, I just made a strawberry cake and decorated it with a cross on a hill, and wrote "He Has Risen" on it. And, eating cake for breakfast always feels special, right?]

After eating resurrection cake, we went to the living room and got to see the final two additions: a rock (for the tomb), and a little sign with the words "He has risen, just as He said!".
We sang the classic rousing resurrection songs and praised God for his life-giving power. Even Abby got in on the action and was allowed to climb on the couch for a closer look. I felt like this was the most memorable easter celebration we've had so far with our kids, and has left us with some good traditions to build on for the future.
Amen! He has risen! And what a special blessing it is for us as parents to pass on those life-changing facts to our little ones!