Skip to main content

Easter 2015

Easter this year butt up right against our family's impending move to Freeport, Illinois.  Although it would have been fun to celebrate newness of life in our own new home, I lobbied for the move to be postponed until the week after Easter.  I wanted to have time for reflection as well as resources for celebrating.

Here are some of the things we did to mark the season:

1. On Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, the kids and I watched the Bible video on lds.org about Christ's triumphal entry.  Then we set up our Easter table and talked about our plans for the week.

2. On Monday night, we planned an Easter program that we would share with our dinner guests on the upcoming Sunday.  There would be music, stories, and scripture readings.  Carl and I spent the week practicing a solo he would sing ("It Shouldn't Be Hard").  

3. Of course, we spent a lot of time that week cleaning and packing.  During all that time, our Easter candle burnt and I kept replacing it so that the light would always shine.  I decorated the table with eggs, a stuffed lamb doll, and flowers--all above a vibrant green play silk.

4. Thursday night was our Passover dinner.  I made unleavened bread, which we ate with hummus and bitter greens.  I put the Easter candle at our table, symbolically inviting Christ to be with us as he was with his apostles that night.

5. A red candle burnt all day Good Friday.  The wax dripped down the candlestick holder and through the cracks in our makeshift Easter table, splattering my shoes underneath.  I put a small bowl with 30 real silver coins in it on the table and changed the green silk for a red place mat.

6. The day before Easter was the first half of General Conference.  My sister, her fiance, and my brothers came to help us clean our apartment.  We washed the walls while listening to the afternoon session.  The apartment was clean and full of activity but our Easter table was nearly barren.  No light shone on the end of our candlestick.

7. Easter morning, the kids woke up with excitement.  That is the feeling I have tried to cultivate about this holiday: lots of stillness and introspection followed by glorious excitement!  Our Easter candle was burning again and the table was festooned with flowers.  Our braided Easter bread was on the breakfast table, surrounded by the kids' baskets.  There was a new pair of jeans and a new collared shirt for everyone, along with the traditional chocolate bunny.  The day was also glorious, with warm inviting weather.  I love Easter morning!  

8. The conference talks on that day were inspiring.  I especially liked Elder Uchtdorf's talk on grace and Elder Holland's talk called "Where Justice, Love and Mercy Meet".  They were wonderful messages appropriate to the day.  

9.  I almost forgot the Easter egg hunt!  Between session of conference, there was a massive neighborhood hunt.  Whenever I think of the Easter egg hunt, I think of the Lord's promise "seek and ye shall find".  Because of His atonement and resurrection, Christ's love and presence are there for us to find, if we seek it.  His Spirit can infuse our lives and, if we seek Him all the days of our lives, someday we will see Him.  Hopefully, we will find that we are like Him.  I don't think that the kids get anything like that out of the Easter egg hunt but I think that someday they could.  Either way, I am glad that they associate Easter with looking for and finding wonderful little gifts.

10.  In the evening, our friends the Johnsons came to dinner.  They brought most of the food; I just made rolls and cheesy potatoes.  After our feasting, our family presented our Easter program.  I accompanied the music on my little harp since the big harps were already packed up and the piano had been given away.  There was a sweet Spirit and definite purpose in our home that night.  We shared our testimonies of the Savior and I was glad to think my children knew for certain what the holiday is about.  I feel (unrighteously) proud of how our Easter traditions work together to bring God's springtime message into the hearts of my children.  



It may have been the best Easter yet.  

A few days later, we were all packed up and on our way to a new home.
Labels:

Comments

Oozaroo said…
It sounds lovely.
June 19, 2015 at 2:18 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Works for Us: Room Time

I've decided to do a new series of posts on how I make parenting work for us. Every parent does it differently--which is great!--but I have a hard time keeping my discoveries to myself. The things I do may not work for anyone else but I want to record them and remember them. Hopefully, it will also help me vent my soap-box-y-ness so that I'm not always imposing my ideas on other people. That will be what "What-Works-for-Us Posts" are about. One of the things that we have always done, but has made a HUGE difference in the move from one to two children, is Room Time . When Soren was 6 months old, I started having him play alone (in a safe place) every day for a few minutes. At first it was only five minutes in the port-a-crib but we quickly worked up to fifteen, then thirty. At that time, I used those precious minutes to do housework or relax on the couch. When I was pregnant with Carl, Soren would play alone for about an hour in his room and I would usually tak
2 comments
Read more

Surrounded by Love

One of my greatest worries about having four children was that I would not be able to welcome and love my new baby as well as I had the others.  Now that he is here, I feel that he is perhaps the most welcomed and best loved of all my sons.  More on that in a moment. I struggled to bond with Leif in utero, in part because pregnancy was old hat to me and in part because life was busy with too many other things.  The new miracle  growing inside of me was the most normal thing about my life.  There were a few good moments that helped me prepare mentally: doing guided meditations during Christmas vacation, my blessingway on January 6th, and a really good conversation I had with Scott about my hopes and worries.  But mostly, my mind was elsewhere. And then there was the birth.  I should have known that it would be a totally unique experience and that it would prepare me for this totally unique child. Needless to say, I'm crazy about the little guy. Scott has also really taken
1 comment
Read more

ABCs

A couple of months ago I was trying to encourage Soren to draw. For 15 or 20 minutes every afternoon, we would sit at the coffee table with paper and pencil. I would draw stick figures and doodles; Soren would watch, his own paper untouched. After a couple of days repeating my usual pictures over and over, I ran out of ideas and started writing the letters of his name. One day I wrote and drew pictures of all the things I could think of that began with S: Soren, snake, superman, spider, stars, etc. The next day we focused on the letter O. It gave me ideas for drawing, which kept Soren entertained even if it wasn't fulfilling its original purpose. A couple more weeks went by and I didn't put any effort into reinforcing the letters. So I was very surprised when, one day while reading a naptime story, he pointed to the page and said very distinctly, "ess". He was, in fact, pointing to an S. And he was very excited about it. So, instead of reading the book, we sp
3 comments
Read more