Easter...For Next Year

Does anyone else feel like they are always behind?  Easter was a week ago, I know.  The last few years I always feel like the holidays sneak up on me and we seem to be a week out and I'm scrambling to find good ideas of solid, Christ-centered activities for our family to make a tradition and ways to prepare our hearts.  Looking back at this Christmas and this Easter I'm ashamed at how little we (and more I) prepared spiritually for these great holidays that remind of us of our Great Savior.

I am allowing myself some grace though.  I realize that, although we've been married 7 years, Tim and I are still searching out the things that God is calling our family to do during these holidays.  I'm not sure there are a whole lot of people that have it all figured out before they have kids.  I think it is just part of the "learning as you go" thing.  As God is growing our family, He is growing our hearts and stretching us to be more thoughtful in how we prepare.  I feel like we are still "babies" in this area.  I realize that what we choose to do this year and maybe next, might be different than what will work for us 5 years from now. 

For the last few holidays Tim and I have also had A LOT of discussions on what we want to be communicating to our boys by how we choose to celebrate.  We want Christ to be the utmost and forefront of both Christmas and Easter.  The easy part for us was saying, we won't do Santa or the Easter Bunny.  The truth shall be known.  Just like Spiderman or Superman, they are fun characters; but they are not real. Christ is real.  He is enough to get excited over.  The hard part is all the other excess.  We cherish tradition and family time so we don't want to void the holidays of the other things that we enjoy.  We will continually seek the Lord for the balance he wants our family to have in these areas.

In the mean time, I have been putting a lot of thought into other activities that will help us remember what Christ did for us and to help us to remember to slow down and prepare our hearts to allow room for Him to speak.  We definitely didn't get around to all of these this year, but I figure this gives me a good jump start on next year.

The boys and I did read through most of  The Story of Easter:Read and Share by Gwen Ellis.  It has 13 (I believe) stories in it from Jesus riding into Jerusalem, the Lord's Supper, the crucifixion, resurrection, and His ascension.  The stories are paraphrased but have their Biblical references.  It's pretty short and sweet, great for a 2-3 year old.  Sometimes we read the actual Bible passage as well.

We also read An Easter Gift for Me by Crystal Bowman.  It was given to us as a gift last year.  It is a simple but great book, in a poem format, speaking the truth about Easter.

We attempted Resurrection Cookies with the boys this year as well.  There are tons of tutorials out there for these as well, but I'm sending you to Mama Jenn's as she is awesome and has a free printable for the project!  The activity in itself was great...the cookies themselves...not so much.  We can try again next year.

Another great alternative to try are Resurrection Rolls.  You can find the tutorial here.  They look real easy and super yummy!

For next year, I also ordered Benjamin's Box: The Story of the Resurrection Eggs by Melody Carlson.  This book is meant to be used in correspondence with the Resurrection Eggs (by Family Life).  If you haven't heard of Resurrection Eggs they are a great tool to use in going over the story of Jesus' death and resurrection.  You can order the eggs here or make your own version using this tutorial.

Another thing that I would like to try in the future is a Passover Dinner.  I know I participated in one as a teen, but I saw a friend link to this on FB the other day and it looks like a great kid-friendly version.  Depending on the ages of you kids, I'm sure you could shorten it as needed too.

There are TONS of other great hands on activities to do with your kids during the season of Lent.  You can check out Passionate Homemaking's List here.  Also, if you go here and scroll to the bottom of the entry you will find multiple links to other blogs with more than enough.

One of the things that I definitely want to be more intentional about next year is Lent.  Lent was foreign to me until I was a teen and was encouraged by a youth leader one year to give up something for Lent in preparation for Easter.  It's been a while since I've used that time wisely.  Some of the books/resources that look inspiring are Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter,  From Trail to the Tree: A Family Devotional for Lent by Ann Voskamp, and The Season of Lent from The Village Church (just scroll to the bottom to download the Lent guide).

How do you and your family prepare for Easter?!   I'd love to hear!!!