This post from Good Friday in 2009 seems appropriate for Good Friday this year as well!
From Jen:
Would you mind sharing your Easter traditions? I'm struggling to stress the importance of Easter with my kids. Christmas provides lots of opportunities, but Easter isn't so easy. love, jen
In the past few years, our Easter traditions have changed quite a bit. As a person who tends to go overboard (I know, you're shocked!) I used to hide zillions of eggs for my two tiny girls. Which meant hyper girls and throwing away perfectly good jelly beans after a week because the sight of them started to make my stomach hurt after eating too many.
So one Easter in San Diego, I decided to hide only the 12 resurrection eggs. That's it. Each girl got to find six. I was a little unsure of how they'd react, but it was wonderful. Yes, they found the eggs in about 39 seconds flat, but then they sat on the floor with them and worked together to put them in order, telling and retelling the Easter story for at least an hour.
I could hardly believe it!
We also read the book Benjamin's Box that goes along with the eggs to hear the story from a child's perspective. And, one year, we made our own boxes--collecting things that reminded us of the Easter story.
For younger children, go check out my friend Janna and my friend Wendy. They both have wonderful ideas for celebrating Easter with little ones--activities, crafts, and age-appropriate books.
This year, being sick put a crimp in my Lent/Easter plans. I totally got off track with my own Lenten devotional reading and have struggled with feeling like I missed out on some of the things I'd wanted to do.
But we are doing our big Easter tradition tonight. This is our third year of celebrating Good Friday with a Seder. The meal is really for Passover, but Passover and Easter don't always match on our calendars. So we've just decided to do it each year on Good Friday.
Our first Seder, three years ago
This is a long meal and involves lots of reading, so it's really better for children who are a little bit older. (Though I suppose you could just do the Seder plate with smaller children without also having a meal with it. It takes several hours altogether and that's a long time for little ones to sit at the table.)
I have this marvelous book--A Family Guide to Biblical Holidays--that includes a booklet walking you through the meal in a family friendly way. It also includes some recipes and all kinds of other ideas for celebrating Passover.
The thing I also like about this book is that it very clearly shows how Jesus fulfilled each element of the feast.
Having this meal together, more than anything we've done for Easter--has taught my children the significance of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. And because it looks back to Israel's captivity and freedom from Egypt in a tangible way, they also see that all of Scripture points to Jesus.
So this morning, Emma's going to bake a cake so we can assemble a trifle for our dessert later; I'm going to roast the lamb shank for the Seder plate; we need to get out the china and crystal to set the table, chop apples to make the haroset that represents the mortar the Israelites used to make bricks in Egypt, get the roast in the crock pot (Audrey and Emma can't bring themselves to eat lamb--so we've improvised). All that said, I'd better get going!
Thinking of you and your family ~ you're in my prayers Joanne. Easter blessings, dear friend!
Much love,
Trish
Posted by: Trish | March 21, 2008 at 08:00 PM
This is a really neat idea. I am enjoying your blog very much!
God bless-
Amanda
http://iammommy.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Posted by: Amanda | March 22, 2008 at 06:45 AM
How beautiful. In the past two years I've learned th significance of the Passover sedar and how it points to Jesus. I am in awe at how perfect HIS word is! May you experience His blessings as You focus on Christ this weekend.
Blessings in Christ-
Posted by: Shonda | March 22, 2008 at 11:46 AM
Hi Joanne,
I finally made your Joanne carrots today. We had Chris' family over for an early Easter celebration. The carrots were a hit. 2 of my sister-in-laws asked for the recipe. Thank you!
Lisa
Posted by: Lisa R-P | March 22, 2008 at 04:58 PM
What a neat tradition, Joanne! My husband belongs to a Messianic church (like Jews for Jesus), and I belong to a Baptist church (we always attend both churches together), so we celebrated Easter last weekend, and we'll celebrate Passover (realizing that Jesus is our Passover Lamb) next month. If you ever get a chance, I know that you would enjoy attending a Christ in the Passover ceremony sponsored by Jews for Jesus. Or maybe you've already done that? It really opened my eyes to see how all of the symbolism of a traditional Passover points to Jesus and His fulfillment of prophecy. And every year, as we celebrate Passover, we pray that God would reveal this to Jewish people so that they would recognize that He is their Messiah, too.
Posted by: Karen | March 24, 2008 at 06:22 AM
Emma is baking a cake. Those are wonderful words. I am saying lots of thank you prayers.
Posted by: rose | March 25, 2016 at 08:42 AM
Well, reposted from 2009 in BIG letters and I thought it was from this year! I'm a bit ditzy wouldn't you say? So I'll just keep up with the asking prayers. :)
Posted by: rose | March 25, 2016 at 02:42 PM
You are so blessed to be sharing this with your girls..Thank God for that. Enjoy!!
Posted by: Anita | March 25, 2016 at 06:08 PM
Cool! I cannot believe that you have posted this in 2009! It seems so long ago! Nice traditions and awesome ideas for 2017 Easter celebration:) Thanks!
Posted by: http://pinkelstar.com/ | April 12, 2016 at 04:13 AM