Bunnies, Eggs and Candy?....

I was so excited one day last week when my sister Sara called me! She was on her way home from Seagull Book and was calling to share a great find! I love my two sister's, it is so fun to have them to learn from. They are way more "hip" than me and are always sharing style tips, recipes, new books, friend advice, husband advice, church calling ideas etc... we trade our new found favorite lip glosses, accessories, and "mom stories." They truly are my best friends...even though they are both many hundreds of miles away (so sad)!! Anyway, Sara called and was really eager to tell me about this book that she came across titled "A Christ Centered Easter" by Janet and Joe Hales. She shared with me what the preface of the book says and it exactly mirrores our thoughts about the Easter Holiday.

"For years I felt that our family's Easter celebration was as hollow as the cholcolate bunnies we devoured on Easter morning. All my life I had been told that the atonement and the ressurection of Jesus Christ are the most signifigant events in all creation. If that is true I reasoned, then shouldn't Easter- the commemoration of those events- be the highlight of our year?

It certainly was not the highlight in my family. Christmas with all those presents and candy, was the undisputed favorite in our home, followed by Halloween and then Thanksgiving. Though hard to admit, Easter fell somewhere between Valentines's day and Independance Day in actual importance to the children.

Quietly I began to make plans for a new kind of Easter celebration of our Lord's resurrection above witches and goblins or even of bunnies and eggs.

It didn't take long to review what we normally did for Easter.... our main focus rested on eggs and a lot of cholcolate. We had few, if any, other traditional activities. There was the special Easter dinner... I was so worn out by the end that the meal brought little joy.

it would be an understatement to say that I believed there was room for imporvement. My husband Joe, had also begun to feel dissatisfied with our family's shallow concept for Easter. With the parents in agreement, then, the stage was set to change our family's Easter focus from peter cottontail and his basket to Jesus Christ, his atonement, and his resurrection. We wanted our family to better honor and praise him. We sought to draw nearer to him..."

I love this part of the preface because it just hit me that Easter really does commemorate one of the most signifigant events and is what our faith as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints is centered on. If you ask my kids why we celebrate Easter they will recite for you the typical Sunday School answer "the ressurection." which is ok, but I'm not sure how deep their knowledge of the life of the Savior really is. Most years we have a little Family Home Evening about the first Easter. But I must admit that we haven't done enough to celebrate and appreciate the true meaning of Easter.

I am so excited this year to start some new traditions for our family that include focusing on our Savior and his life and the events that lead up to his resurrection. We are hoping to do a service prroject, sing songs, eat as Jesus ate, learn from his parables, talk about his life and his great gift to all of us. This book gives ideas for short devotionals that include scriptures, thoughts, discussion and fun recipes, activities and games to make the week leading up to Easter... more meaningful!

Here are the topics for the week

Day 1- Jesus' Triumphal Entry

Day2- Cleansing the Temple

Day3-Parables and teachings

Day 4-Rest in Bethany

Day 5- The last supper and Jesus' prayer and agony in Gethsemane.

Day 6- Jesus' trial and crucifixion

Day 7- The Jewish Sabbath

Day8- Jesus' Ressurection and apperances

I love the ideas in this book and I think you will too! like I've mentioned before... I am a big fan of traditions -they are so fun!! we will still keep our old traditions of bunnies, eggs, and candy, but hopefully they will be second to the excitement we feel about celebrationg our Savior!! And I'm sure depending on the year things will need to be adjusted for our needs. This book has each idea and activity seperated into age groups(preschool, grade school, teen, adult, entire family etc...) and I just love it!! Even if you don't have children or they are little, or you feel you can't spread this out over an entire week, I totally reccomend this book!! It is such a great resource about the life of the Savior. Maybe you already have traditions and feel good about your Easter holiday, if not, I hope that you are able to focus more on our Savior this Easter too!