Easter Traditions

Easter is here!  He is risen!  He is risen indeed!  

Life has been hectic.  Starting about 4 kids ago.  But even more so lately it seems.  Like for the past year. Most recently I've been in the throes of home reorganization, trying to restore order to the chaos here.  That may be an impossible dream, but I'm working on it anyways. As a result, other things have been shuffled to the bottom of the "to-do" list.  Like dyeing Easter eggs or doing Easter crafts or even Easter egg hunts. And I even neglected my Resurrection Eggs (12 countdown days to Easter leading up to the Resurrection). So I've been feeling a lot of Mom Guilt lately about this.  But my 6 year son's prayers last night really got me thinking.  Basically he prayed (and very eloquently - watch out, Pastor Ray), "Thank you for Easter... a Christian holiday... the holiday that makes us Christians."

This is an important holiday, Christians!!  If you aren't Christian, I'm not sure why you're celebrating except for the tradition of it.  But, if you're interested, Zach (aforementioned 6 year old) can lay out the gospel message in the Resurrection for you when you're ready.

Here are the Easter traditions that made the cut to help us celebrate this holiday:

1) New Easter church outfits and shoes.  I grew up in the South, so that means we can wear white shoes now.  Until Labor Day, in case you were wondering.  My dad's cousin Susan hand-made the girls matching dresses and I was able to find coordinating shirts for the boys.  Dean and I even scrounged up coordinating outfits too, even though they weren't new.  Sure, we have plenty of clothes we could have worn.  But I wanted us to present our best to God especially on this special Holi-day.  And I admit, I love matching outfits.

Jacob (almost 8), Lydia 4, Anna 11 mos, Eliza 2, Zachary 6

2) Resurrection Eggs.  Eliza had access to the Easter bin and completely spread Easter grass, eggs and our Resurrection egg set throughout the basement a couple of weeks ago.  Another confession: I came unglued.  Not very Christ-like at all.  Thank the Lord that his mercies are new every day/hour! So we didn't even have a complete set of eggs to use.  This morning, however, I woke up early and searched through the recovered eggs for the eggs that went with the set.  We had about 6 of the 12.  So I made replacement eggs for the missing ones. Then I hid the eggs along our walkway.  I let each kid hunt for 3 eggs, then we came inside and opened them and read through the verses.  I did all this because I wanted us to prepare our hearts for Easter worship. And the kids loved it! 

3) Easter baskets.  We give the children gifts on Easter.  Easter is a gift to us, just as Jesus' birth was a gift to us.  They are from us, not a bunny.  In their baskets this year were new Bibles with their names engraved on them.  Also a few pieces of candy and other little gifts.  I don't want this to be about Easter baskets and egg hunts, but about the resurrection of our Savior.  They opened them after we did our Resurrection Egg activity.  

4) Church worship.  We love our church!  We are so blessed to be a part of First Baptist.  It was a great morning worshiping fellow church members, believers and new folks!  I loved what Pastor Ray shared at the end of his message today: Jesus called Mary's name from the tomb.  He knows your name.  Do you know Him??

5) Easter dinner with family.  We haven't always lived near family to do this, but we've always shared a meal on Easter either with friends or family.  This is Biblical - the believers in the new church in Acts gathered together to eat together.  But it's also just what we do. It's a tradition.  Traditions are important.  It's a way that we can teach our children about things that are important.  Like family and fellowship.  And homemade mac-n-cheese.  Why don't my kids like it????

6) Easter egg hunt.  Our Easter celebrations are coming to a close.  We are just relaxing at home with our family.  So I've offered to go out and hide eggs for them to find.  They filled them with 1 jellybean or 1 coin in each (I ran out of jelly beans).  They're thrilled.  It's fun and it's a beautiful day, so why not?

As you can see, it appears that Easter has still been a busy day for us.  I had to pick and choose which traditions I had the time and energy for.  My inclination and encouragement to other believers are to prioritize the ones that promote the day you're celebrating.  I'm especially pleased with how my Mom-fail Resurrection Egg activity Plan B turned out.  It was a great way to start our Easter Sunday. Now we're going to go hunt eggs with our Easter bunny baskets.  (Another tradition started by the kids' great-grandmother Eckroth.)  Traditions are important.  Don't be afraid to make new ones too. 

Happy Resurrection Sunday from the Milnes!