Easter

 

We had a great Easter weekend.  It was very simple and not a lot of traditional Easter hoopla.  I feel so conflicted about Easter Bunny stuff.  My parents always did all of the Easter Bunny things on Saturday, which was great because it left Sunday for Easter.  But somehow I am still struggling with it; B-man didn’t get an Easter basket.  Don’t be too sad for him, we have all had lots of candy, and he still had a lot of fun.  I am just trying to figure out how to teach about what Easter really means while doing fun things.  The symbolism in Christmas is just so much easier for me to participate in and make spiritually fulfilling. 

We started with dyeing eggs Friday night.  Always a fun activity and I found myself wishing I had cooked more eggs because all the adults wanted to dye more than we did.

Then Saturday morning we had a small egg hunt in our house.  Later in the afternoon (after the rain had stopped) we then went to an egg hunt that was organized by some friends in our ward.

 

Sunday morning B-man woke up to a trail of pictures of the events leading up to the Resurrection.  There were little treats underneath each picture.  I then told a little bit about each picture and the story of Easter.  I have to be honest, it’s a more complex story to teach a four year old than the birth of Christ.  He is a little scared of all things death and even Heaven is upsetting to him.  He just wants to be on the Earth with us…  But I think he did absorb some of the story.

For next year this is what I would like to do.  Starting the Sunday before Easter I will take one picture at a time and focus on what happened during that day in Christ’s life.  One great thing about the Easter story is that you can really make it as simple, or as complex as you want.  It makes me excited to be able to add interesting details as B-man gets older and can understand more.  And isn’t so worried about having nails in his own hands. (He has commented twice about how he doesn’t want to have nails in his hands while we were talking about the story of the Atonement.) Of course that will all require a lot of planning, which I am not always great about. 

**Disclaimer—I have no problem with fun things spring, and I certainly think that Easter candy is the best candy.  I just don’t really see a strong tie between a bunny and the resurrection.  I know some would say that I should feel the same way about Santa Claus.  But I don’t, maybe that makes me crazy.  I also don’t care AT ALL that people do talk about and have the Easter bunny come to their house.  He’ll come to ours I am sure.  I am just trying to figure out how to get the real meaning and sacredness across about what Easter is.  Maybe I’m trying too hard.  Does any of this internal turmoil makes sense?  Coming up with holiday traditions is hard work!