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You can buy pre-made sets in America, or you can make your own set by collecting small objects to represent parts of the Easter story, and put them in plastic eggs. Then each day your children  can take turns opening one egg and putting the item on a  nic-nac shelf, sort of like an advent calendar but for Easter. As an exciting grand finale on Easter morning,  put candy in the empty eggs and hide them for the children to find.

 

 

Link to sites that sell Resurrection sets

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This makes a lovely focal point for your Easter decorations--keeping all the elements of spring, and the true meaning of Easter central--but without using any Easter bunnies!! They aren’t hard to make, so your kids can help you. Since dirt is involved, it can get messy--just what kids like. Let your kids choose the flowers, and it can become an annual tradition like shopping for a Christmas tree.

 

 

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For Christmas, many families and churches use an advent wreath with 4 candles as a weekly count down till Christmas. To borrow from that, I started using 3 candles to look forward to Easter. 3 seemed like a good number to use to represent Jesus’ 3 days in the grave, the 3 crosses, and the Trinity. I chose the color purple to represent Jesus as the King of Kings, and because the soldiers mocked him by putting a royal purple robe on him during his trial. Then on Good Friday, I change them to black candles, and on Easter morning, I change them to white candles.

 

 

 

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Easter is a time of new beginnings and new life in Christ. Continue that theme by making a new dessert that no one in your family has tried before. You can let the kids look through your cook books and find something that looks yummy and make it together, or drop by the grocery story bakery and choose a treat they have never eaten before. Or, gather dessert-making ingredients, and see who can invent the yummiest concoction.

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Decorating Easter eggs is a tradition that has been practiced for centuries. I wondered if it was a tradition that I wanted to continue until I heard that when Christians were under persecution, they wanted to send Easter greetings to each other, so they exchanged decorated eggs with symbols that only Christians would recognize. I have not been able to verify that, but it was enough to convince me that it is a pretty cool tradition to keep handing down.

 

 

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6. Celebrate Palm Sunday

This is a day to really celebrate--as Jesus said, if the people didn’t shout out, the rocks would! So God thinks celebration is important, too. Humans were the ones who were trying to snuff out the celebrating. Jesus did not set any guidelines, just affirmed that what the people were doing was good. So feel free to celebrate Jesus’ work of salvation any way you like.

 

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7. Celebrate Passover

This definitely takes some work to prepare, so it is not for everyone. But it is the one thing that my kids did not want to skip if I was too busy to do all our Easter traditions.

 

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We start celebrating at breakfast with cocoa crosses or hot cross buns and end in the evening with a solemn ceremony when we nail our sins to a cross. Then we take the papers off the cross and burn them to symbolize how our sins have been forgiven--as far as the east is from the west. We finish by praying a prayer of thanksgiving that our sins are no longer held against us.

 

 

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Bake a cake in a bundt pan (cut it off center so that the hole is all on one side. Stand the large side on it’s cut side so the hole forms the grave. Put the smaller section behind the large section to form the back of the grave, and so that it sticks out to one side to form a “hill” in the background. Poke 3 crosses into this smaller hill--they can be made of pretzel sticks, bread sticks, chocolate, or cookies. Then embellish with details to make it look “real”

 

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Over the years, we did a lot of fun things during the Easter season, but on Easter day, the celebration just seemed to fizzle out. There wasn’t a grand finale to finish the season with a bang. It was then that I decided to give my children Easter baskets. There were things that I wanted to give my children to challenge them to stretch and grow spiritually.  Easter was the perfect setting. Christian books, DVD’s, music, games, and jewelry are just a few ideas of things to put in Easter baskets for your children.  Chocolate Easter bunnies are an Easter basket favorite, but I avoided chocolate Easter bunnies because I feel that the Easter bunny has hijacked Easter, or at least obscured the true meaning of Easter. But I didn’t want my obsession to make my children feel like they were missing out on the chocolate Easter experience, so I bought  chocolate crosses instead. If you have trouble finding them, you can buy cross or sheep candy molds, and melt your own chocolate for a special treat each year.

 

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