Contrast this with our (and the millions of Christians in this country) celebration of the empty tomb of Jesus and the hope that it gives. No more need for sacrifice year after year, no fear in death, peace with the one true living God, no anxiety over if my dead loved one is pleased with me or not, as if they have any power. A real living hope. A real living God.
About two weeks prior we gathered some things to remind us of Easter.
A crown of thorns, a purple robe. A cross.
There are a ton of things out there and great traditions to start. This year we kept it simple but focused. We do hope to integrate a real Seder meal but not this year.
I found a weeks worth of good activities to supplement what David was doing at night. I hand wrote them on the back of pretty stationary and had them laminated. I plan to reuse them! I did not do every activity and tweaked some. I got the list from this website.
We baked three loaves of Poppy seed bread. ALL of them stuck to the pan, it was a mess. A failure. I asked Sophia who was someone she thought needed some kindness and she said CS. I salvaged one loaf, put it in some tupperware and gave it to his mom. I was so glad it was her because she understood, as a mother of three herself: it was an 'everything going awry' day. I literally said: 'here is your bread. It was supposed to be wrapped pretty, with other Easter things, but really, Jesus is enough, He is the bread of life'. We both just chuckled over this unpoetic (my own word again) display.
One of the activities was adding red dye to water with a white carnation in it. Jesus taking our sins. There were no white carnations to be found, but yellow worked okay. The girls loved it.
David and the girls made a tomb out of play dough. And Bella helped get the 'doll' or 'Jesus' prepared for burial.
They were really astonished when they opened the tomb and it was empty on Easter.
This was just a hodge podge of things we did this year. David did lead in devotions leading up to Easter that were really good. The girls were very excited about it. We also decided to host Easter gathering and a potluck picnic, which made them even more excited. They loved helping me spend Saturday cleaning, making chicken salad, making cookies, etc.
We have opted out of incorporating eggs and bunnies into our Easter celebration so far. Not because we are against it, we actually do participate when others host those as part of their celebration, but so far the simpler the better for us in our home (could be I just don't want to deal with dying eggs), and it is much easier here to keep it focused (I think---there aren't candy and baskets and bunnies everywhere, but if only I had some PEEPS!), and much easier to talk about the real meaning with neighbors when it is translated as "Resurrection Festival". So, we stuck with the essentials and had a great celebration. Who knows what next year will bring to our tradition-tweaking family.
We did do a little impromptu split family photo shoot. Not great.
LOVE this photo. I always talk about the girls, but look at my MEN!
Happy Easter! Happy Resurrection Day!
