Tuesday 19 March 2013

8 ideas to make Easter meaningful...


"We reveal to ourselves and others what is important to us by the way we celebrate"
- Noel Piper, Treasuring God in our traditions -

Easter is the highest celebration of the Christian calendar, and yet so often, it slips up on us unexpectedly. In our house, Christmas has the whole build up of Advent; the countdown, the traditions, the (dare I say it) magic that surrounds it... yet Easter can often be a bit of a forgotten celebration. All too easily, our children come to the end of the day, thinking it is all about fluffy chicks, chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies...

Last year, we decided we wanted Ava to understand what Easter was really all about, and to do that, we would have to be purposeful about teaching her the real meaning of Easter, and making it just as special (if not more so) than Christmas. You can read about that here. I've had a bit more time to think about it now, and a bit more time to scour the web and steal other people's ideas, and I've gathered together some of my favourite ideas that I'd like to give a go. Tomorrow, I'm going to be opening a linky party, for anyone out there to link to their blog and share any fab ideas they have for creatively "Making Easter Meaningful"

Here's some ideas to get you started...

1. Easter Breakfast
This was something we started last year. A special meal is central to any celebration. We wanted to have a meal together as a family where we could enjoy each other's company, make the day a bit special and share the Easter story. Of course, boiled eggs and soldiers were a must, and a little treat in everyone's place... little easter baskets filled with chocolate eggs and Easter biscuits... Of course, you could have an Easter lunch, or dinner... but we wanted to celebrate in the morning the fact that Jesus had risen!!

2. Easter baskets
Last year I made these little Easter baskets for everyone (see the tutorial here) that we filled up with chocolate eggs and Easter biscuits. There is absolutely no significance to these, other than the fact that a small treat makes the day memorable to little ones, and tells them that this day is something special! Ava thoroughly enjoyed tucking into her baby friendly version (she was only 6 months old so enjoyed rusks as opposed to chocolate eggs!!)

3. Easter Tree
I saw this idea on Pinterest and love it. It follows the idea of a Christmas tree mixed with an Advent Calendar, but in each hanging egg is an item that tells the story of Easter. Each day in the 12 days running up to Easter, the children can open an egg and uncover the next part of the story. The last egg remains empty, representing the empty tomb. You can see a more detailed explanation on this blog here.

4. Colour Swatch...
This is a cute little craft idea for children that helps them understand the Easter story and would be a nice activity to do with the kids in the run up to Easter. The children make a little book of paper with5 pages inside and colour each page/decorate each page with a certain colour... each colour represents a part of the Easter story and is an easy way for the children to tell the story themselves...
- Purple - Jesus' royal robe
- Red - Jesus' blood
- White - Christ's purity
- Black - Sin and darkness
- Gold - Paradise

5. Easter Book Box
A book box is something special that we do at Christmas... I keep back all our Christmas books for the Advent season and this year I thought I'd try the same for Easter... I'm still sourcing a good collection of Easter books, but these are some I'm currently looking in to getting a hold of!

6.  Resurrection Garden 
I found this idea on Pinterest as well, and its one I will DEFINITELY be doing with Ava this year. I love the idea of watching the garden slowly dying with the special surprise on Easter morning... click here to see the full tutorial...



7. Resurrection Cookies
Of course, any celebration has to have some yummy treats involved... these cookies are to be baked with the children - with accompanying verses to tell the story. The surprise comes when you bite into them and discover they are empty. Another opportunity to talk about the empty tomb! 

Please link up tomorrow with any other ideas you have, or comment below!

No comments:

Post a Comment

I love reading your comments! Thanks for stopping by!