Focusing on the Savior During Easter

So, as I mentioned, I had the opportunity to go to a class at the R.S. conference that taught how we can focus on the Savior during Easter. The woman who taught was so inspirational! The room was covered in displays. She had a packet for each of us with ideas, stories and websites. She shared how her family had been implementing these ideas for the past 7 years and how it had changed their family. 

She started out with a simple analogy. If you were to compare Christmas and Easter to a football game, Christmas would be the kick off, but Easter would be the victory at the end of the game. How important is the victory?! As a society we celebrate Christmas for an entire month. We transform our houses in decorations, we have family gatherings and ward parties. We have traditions galore. Which is wonderful. But what would Christmas even mean if Easter never happened? It really wouldn't have any meaning, because it would just be another baby born. But it WASN'T just another baby born, because that baby grew up and suffered the Atonement and died on the cross for  all mankind. The ironic simplicity of Easter's importance was a transformation moment for me. How had I not realized this before?! Recognizing and celebrating Easter will never be the same again for me. But I had a lot of work to do!

First, I appraised my decorations...

A Spring display, a {creepy} Jesus egg, a front door wreath, some egg banners and some plastic eggs hanging from my front tree. None of which says anything about the true meaning of Easter (other than said egg). This was pretty sad!

The teacher gave us some ideas for decorations for our homes, so I got right on Oriental Trading and ordered a few. My mouse hesitated over the purchase button when I saw how much it would be, but then I remembered we spent $100 alone on a Christmas tree this year. Spending under that for all the Easter decor I'd probably purchase in years would be OK. 

So, we now have a Palm Sunday set that depicts Jesus's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 

And a Resurrection Set that depicts the scene outside the tomb when Jesus is not found inside. 

I also bought the 3 crosses and the "He Lives" display to complete the shortened time line, if you will. 

The best part was that it all came the Friday before Easter! It wasn't supposed to come until April 5, so I was about doing cartwheels when it showed up on our front step.

The next tradition I want to start is that we celebrate Easter for the entire week before actual Easter, starting with Palm Sunday. In the packet I got, it outlines scriptures, stories, events and activities you could do for each respective day. The idea is to go over the last week of Christ's life. 

I printed off a chart for each child, that we added a picture to every day. 

My kids are young, so we kept things very short. Basically, each night we'd gather the boys together and talk about what Christ did on that day, or a parable he taught. Then we'd watch a short bible video that went along with that day. 

Here is the link: http://www.lds.org/bible-videos/?lang=eng

Then I tried to have a small craft or activity to go along with what we talked about.

So on Palm Sunday we made "donkeys". We also went on a little walk to look for symbols of Christ's resurrection. i.e. Something prickly to represent the crown of thorns, wood to represent the cross, etc. 

On Monday, Jesus cleansed the temple, so our craft was to make a temple out of sugar cubes.

On Wednesday, Jesus taught the parable of the 10 virgins, so I bought some oven bake clay and we made oil lamps. This was really fun! Especially because it actually worked! I was a little shocked.

I was looking forward to Thursday the very most. This was the day of the Last Supper and Gethsemane. Again, the packet had a list of foods that would have been around Jesus's time and place, so I had ideas of what to make. This is also the traditional Passover night and there is a whole list of Passover foods for the Seder Plate. I only made two. Haroset (top right picture), which is basically just apples, walnuts, wine (grape juice), cinnamon and honey. I also made Matzoh (bottom left), which is unleavened bread. It is supposed to be placed within the folds of a napkin as a reminder of the haste with which the Israelites fled Egypt, leaving no time for the dough to rise. We also had fish, goat cheese, dried figs and honeyed yogurt. 

We shut all the windows so we could eat by oil lamp light. :)

On Friday, the Savior is tried and crucified. Even though we did discuss it, it's kind of a dark day to talk about. So to lighten things up for the youngsters, our activity was so have a glow in the dark egg hunt in the house. The darkness representing the 3 days of no light after Christ died. I don't know if I'll ever do this again! What a mess. After we turned the lights out, there were glowing splatters all over my kitchen from when I cut one glow stick and it sprayed out of my hand. I should have put tape on the inside of the eggs or something because there are little tiny holes in both ends of the eggs that the liquid leaked out of. There were glow marks on our hands and everywhere! The boys, loved it.

This also happened to be the day that wonderful Miss Rachel's package showed up. Oh boy, were the boys excited! They also got goodies from Grandma Evans, so it was a rather exciting evening. 

Saturday is meant to be {secular Saturday} ha ha. Meaning we did all the egg hunt/candy/Easter bunny fun on this day. Some friends invited us over for a big Easter dinner and the kids had a great time on their egg hunt. (Collin is sporting a side part. Be still my heart. I think he's yummy enough to eat.)

 I contemplated doing Easter baskets on Saturday, but ended up doing them on Sunday. I may change this for next year. All I heard about was the Easter bunny on Sunday morning and while I'm certainly not anti the Easter bunny, I'd rather have Sunday be just about Christ. 

Oh, and I forgot to mention I bought lilies to have on the table at the beginning of the week! The lily's shape symbolizes God calling his Son home with a trumpet.

I went to the Children's Place earlier in the week just planning on buying ties. They ended up with entire outfits. :/

This was the best I got with two, wiggly boys, right before church. They certainly steal my heart, though.

We had 9am church, which got us out right in time for a picnic lunch. Now, I know this is going to seem really weird, but hear me out. We drove to a local cemetery to have our picnic. This was another idea the teacher gave us and I really liked it. I wanted to explain to our boys that the cemetery is a real life application of what the Atonement has blessed us with. They didn't even know what a cemetery was, so first we explained that it's where people's bodies are buried after they die. (Oh boy, did that raise Collin's eyebrows. "You mean, there are dead bodies right here??!" *patting the ground next to him* Then I tried to explain that some people that don't understand the Atonement or know about Jesus, believe that when someone dies, that's it. That's the end. They will never see them again. I told them how we are so lucky because we know about our Savior and what he did for us. Because he suffered the Atonement and died on the cross, we will all be resurrected one day. We will live again, just like he did, after we die. We can be with our families forever. 

On paper it sounded like a great idea. But the flowers and pinwheels on graves were mighty enticing for two little boys. I'm not sure how much they really heard. Then I packed chicken salad sandwiches and after a few bites Collin started complaining that his "neck" hurt. Meaning his throat. He started to get more and more upset, when we remembered that he might be allergic to cashews. I had completely forgotten. He's only had them one other time a couple years ago and started throwing up and sweating, crying, etc. So all of a sudden we're throwing everything into the car and racing home to give him Benadryl. Sigh. I guess I get an E for effort.

My only other wish was that we could have gone to the Easter pageant!! My heart kind of ached that not only could we not go, but that it's been so many years since we've been able to go. I think that will have to change next year. 

At the very least, if the boys never remember any of this, it was a memorable week for me. A lot of the things I read or learned, were things I had never known before. It felt good to focus on the true meaning of Easter for an entire week. And as I thought about what I would say to the boys in the cemetery, I had an overwhelming presence of the Spirit testifying that what I wanted to talk about was true. I was grateful beyond measure for my Savior and his sacrifice. My testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel message was strengthened. I know that Christ suffered in Gethsemane for all our sins, sorrows and heartache. I know that he knows us individually and loves us. I know that he overcame death and rose on the 3rd day. And I have a deep and sustaining love for Him for doing that for me. It humbles me and makes me want to do better. I hope that we can continue this tradition for the years to come. In reflecting on the original football analogy, I really liked this phrase I saw over and over on Easter Sunday. "Death is conquered, man is free. Christ has won the victory." I can say with surety that I know that is true. Happy Easter everyone!