I don’t have a lot of memories of Easter as a kid. My older siblings are all close in age, and then there is decent-sized gap before I was born, so by the time I was old enough to really remember, they had outgrown the egg hunts and other traditions. (Although I do have memories of a slightly terrifying Easter bunny jello mold with jellybean eyes.) We talked about the meaning of the holiday, but we didn’t really have any Christ-centered Easter traditions. Since having kids of my own I’ve gone on kind of a roller coaster of figuring out what kinds of traditions I want for my own family.
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As a kid, we didn’t celebrate holidays much.
I vowed that when I was an almighty grown-up I would go all out at every holiday, big or small. I once stayed the night at a friend’s house on February 13th, and woke up the next morning to heart-shaped palmier cookies and plenty of candy and multiple gifts for each of their six kids, and even a couple for me! Now THAT was the way to celebrate a holiday!
Of course, when I actually got married and we were the ones in charge of the planning and the preparation, I realized why we hadn’t done much as a kid. It’s a lot of work!!! And it just didn’t seem worth it, at least not when it was just Brian and I.
When we had our own kids, then we would start all the fun traditions, right?
But you know, a newborn doesn’t care much about holidays either. It’s not like he’d notice or remember. Years went by, we had more kids, and the excuses kept coming.
As Arthur has gotten older, we have finally started establishing traditions for our family, but we’ve been all across the board in the types of things we do.
Maybe we’ll go all out with scavenger hunts and candy and toys!
Oof. That’s a lot of work and a lot of money.
Maybe we’ll have nothing but a few boiled eggs and a chocolate bunny for each kid.
Okay, that’s too far, that would be kind of sad.
Maybe we’ll do bunny crafts and Easter-themed preschool activities all week long.
Wait a second, the actual reason for Easter is getting lost in all of the bunnies and chocolate.
It can get so overwhelming and complicated, especially when we didn’t have much in the way of long-standing family traditions to draw from. We’re starting from scratch, and it’s hard to know which direction to go.
We don’t want our kids to miss out on all of the “fun” parts of the holidays, but we also don’t want that to overshadow the reason we’re celebrating in the first place.
So of course I took to Pinterest. And here are some of the best Christ-centered Easter ideas I found. There’s some treats, there’s some crafts, and there’s also a lot of thinking about the Savior and what He did for us. He lives again so that we can live again with Him!
#StartingToday
I’m going to be honest with you. This year we’re still keeping it pretty simple. I just didn’t quite think about all of this early enough. I mean, it’s already Tuesday, we’ve missed Palm Sunday and Holy Monday completely. We might make some resurrection rolls and talk about the Easter story, but most of this is brainstorming for next year.
But that’s okay too. Because the most important thing is that we come closer to Christ, and that doesn’t have to look like felt banners and daily crafts. It can just look like reading your scriptures more or forgiving someone who has hurt you. For our family, we set a goal that #StartingToday we will pray more often and more sincerely. And maybe next year we’ll do some crafts.
Easter Creche
Okay, so this isn’t an activity, but it is a beautiful decoration for the Easter season. There are plenty of different styles, but here are a couple of my favorites. Click the images to check the current price.
Resurrection Garden
This year is the first time I’ve ever heard of a resurrection garden, but I definitely want to adopt this beautiful Easter tradition!
Resurrection Garden from Catholic Icing
Holy Week Countdown
There are so many different ways to approach this, I just couldn’t pick a favorite. Here are a few different ideas.
- Countdown to Easter from Just a Girl and Her Blog
- Holy Week Calendar from The Domestic Notebook
- The Road to Easter from Everything is Grace
- Holy Week in a Box from It’s an Always Always Kind of Love
- Holy Week Banner from The Diary of a Sower
- Holy Week Countdown from Intentional Motherhood
Empty Tomb Rolls
You can’t go wrong with marshmallows dipped in butter, rolled in cinnamon sugar, and wrapped in crescent dough (or my super easy faux puff pastry if you want to keep away from pre-made dough)! Plus they have a fun and meaningful surprise after they’re baked.
Empty Tomb Rolls from Lovely Little Kitchen
Christ-centered Easter Morning Scavenger Hunt
This is a simple but super fun way to start out Easter morning with hunting for baskets, but also thinking of Christ all along the way.
Easter Morning Scavenger Hunt from Happy Home Fairy
Resurrection Eggs
There are slight variations on what to put in each of the eggs. I liked this one because it is simple but includes a lot of the details. They were surprisingly hard to find, but I like the idea of using white eggs to make them easy to tell apart from the candy ones.
Resurrection Eggs from Toys in the Dryer
Puzzle Search
Another way to easily incorporate Christ into your standard egg hunt is to put pieces of a puzzle into some of the eggs then put it together as a family.
Christ-Centered Egg Hunt from Hess Un-Academy
Let me know if you try out any of these activities!
I would love to hear which ones are your favorites!
