I was chatting with a friend this morning about Easter plans and we were discussing the often great difficulty of balancing cultural activities with what's really important when it comes to holidays. For us, this is ever-changing as each year brings about new family challenges and children with different and more developed personalities. For that reason, I imagine the cultural activities we include every year among Christmas and Easter will vary depending on our season of life and where our kids are, etc.
Here's our plan for Easter and Holy Week this year.
We make an Easter tree to use with a set of the Resurrection Eggs for our Holy Week Advent. I revamped some of the Resurrection Eggs content to fit our devotions as they were too detailed for the ages of my kids. I also really wanted to incorporate three of our favorite children's story Bibles for our readings instead of what comes with the Resurrection Eggs.
Our Easter tree last year.
Resurrection Eggs. You can make your own, or buy them online or at most Christian bookstores. I found it easier to buy as the little trinkets might be hard to find. Our awesome friend Aunt Megan Flinn bought these for Mekonen and Evie.
Our 3 Favorite Children's Story Bibles
The Gospel Story Bible
You can actually preview the entire book here. So if you don't own the book you can pull it up, color pictures and everything, and read from there.
You can actually preview the entire book here. So if you don't own the book you can pull it up, color pictures and everything, and read from there.
Holy Week
(Family Devotions Tip: When we do family devotions, we do them during dinnertime. In our current stage of life, we find this to be the easiest time to have us all together and our very young children have their hands occupied by eating and aren't squirming around too much! It also works well for us right now as our two kids go to bed at different times. I wrote about wanting to do this tradition here, several months before Mekonen came home).
Each day has a reading from a story Bible, an Easter egg to open with a trinket that goes along with the story, and a picture ornament that goes along with the story. Both the trinket and picture will be hung on the Easter tree, much like our Jesse Tree from Christmas that hung ornaments from the Bible stories leading up to the birth of Jesus.
Day 1- The Triumphant Entry (Sunday, March 24th)
(Family Devotions Tip: When we do family devotions, we do them during dinnertime. In our current stage of life, we find this to be the easiest time to have us all together and our very young children have their hands occupied by eating and aren't squirming around too much! It also works well for us right now as our two kids go to bed at different times. I wrote about wanting to do this tradition here, several months before Mekonen came home).
Each day has a reading from a story Bible, an Easter egg to open with a trinket that goes along with the story, and a picture ornament that goes along with the story. Both the trinket and picture will be hung on the Easter tree, much like our Jesse Tree from Christmas that hung ornaments from the Bible stories leading up to the birth of Jesus.
Day 1- The Triumphant Entry (Sunday, March 24th)
- Read The Gospel Story Bible pg. 216-217
- Egg- dark blue- little donkey hang on Easter tree
- Picture of triumphant entry- hang on Easter tree
- Read The Big Picture Story Bible pg. 288-305
- Egg- light pink- coins, hang coin picture on Easter tree
- Picture of Jesus cleansing the temple- hang on Easter tree
- Read The Jesus Storybook Bible pg. 286-288 (or The Gospel Story Bible pg. 220-221)
- Egg- green- cloth, hang on Easter tree
- Picture of Jesus washing the apostles feet- hang on Easter tree
- Read The Jesus Storybook Bible pg. 290-292 (or The Gospel Story Bible pg. 222-225)
- Egg- light purple- wine cup, hang on Easter tree
- Picture of the Last Supper- hang on Easter tree
- Read The Jesus Storybook Bible pg. 294-301 (or The Gospel Story Bible pg. 226-229, or The Big Picture Story Bible pg. 359-363))
- Egg- orange- praying hands, hang on Easter tree
- Picture of the Garden of Gethsemane- hang on Easter tree
Day 6- The Crucifixion of Jesus (Friday, March 29th)
- Read The Jesus Storybook Bible pg. 302-306 (or The Gospel Story Bible pg. 230-233, or The Big Picture Story Bible pg. 364-373)
- Egg- yellow- cross, hang on Easter tree
- Picture of the crucifixion- hang on Easter tree
Day 7- The Burial of Jesus and Darkness Covers the Land (Saturday, March 30th)
- Read The Jesus Storybook Bible pg. 308 and The Big Picture Story Bible pg. 376-380
- Egg- pink- stone, hang picture of a stone on Easter tree
- Picture of the burial of Jesus- hang on Easter tree
Day 8- The Resurrection (Sunday, March 31st)
- Read The Jesus Storybook Bible pg. 310-317 or shorter The Big Picture Story Bible pg. 385-395 (or The Gospel Story Bible pg. 235-237)
- Egg- white- empty! Nothing to hang on the Easter tree (or you can make a smiley face ornament to hang for Joy that Jesus has risen)
- Picture of the risen Jesus- hang on Easter tree
- Easter Night story time- Read The Big Picture Story Bible pg. 398-411. Great overview of why Jesus came, why He had to die, and the Promises of Scripture.
I We also do a special Easter breakfast here at home with just our family. Not sure on the exact Easter breakfast menu yet, but definitely including something sugary and sweet that the kids don't get on a normal day!
Here are some craft activities I posted last year, but with half of our house still in boxes, I'm not so sure we will get to them this year! But we'll see!
- Resurrection Play set made out of toilet paper rolls. We did this last year and had fun with them. Maybe this year Mekonen will be more into coloring them. He stopped after a few minutes and I had to finish the rest! You can print them in black and white and have your kids color them, or print them in color.
- Praise Palm- paint or color and make a praise palm, praising God for Who He is (specific character traits of God) and specific things He has done in the life of our family. We will write these on the palm leaf.
- The Last Supper craft made out of an egg carton. Can be used when doing the family devotional reading on the Last Supper.
- Play-dough Easter mountain
- Easter story with jelly beans. I just bought the book My Easter Basket by Mary Manz Simon. Here's the activity to do along with it.
- Paper plate tomb craft
- Marble Painitng. "By His wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5
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