Easter is a holiday surrounded in controversy and emotion. Even amongst Christians, there are many different opinions over which are acceptable traditions. However, how you celebrate Easter does not matter as much as what you celebrate about Easter. Do you celebrate a big, fuzzy bunny? Do you celebrate new life and re-birth and mother earth? Do you celebrate a risen King, one who was sacrificed for sin and then resurrected by a Sovereign God? These are the lines that divide the most. The many different paths that take you there are open for interpretation.
For me, my dissatisfaction with our Easter celebrations began three years ago. My eldest daughter was five. For several Easter’s prior, we had attempted to happily integrate some common childhood celebrations into our Easter tradition. We own a set of Resurrection Eggs, and we held an Easter egg hunt at our house. Afterward, we tried to read through the Easter story together the way the set instructs. However, I found that no matter what I tried I couldn’t keep my daughter’s attention. She was more interested in her bounty from the hunt. What did all the other little plastic eggs contain? What treasures lay inside to be discovered?
One Easter I attempted to read through the story first, but that didn’t work much better. My daughters wanted to know when the egg hunt was going to begin. When sweets and treats are in the picture, it seems, little else can compete for the child’s attention. When my daughters were 6 and 3, I began to get very anxious as Easter approached. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I did know what I did not want to do. I did not want to lose focus of the real holiday. But how? I lucked out of doing anything that year. By the time the next easter rolled around I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Read more…
