We haven't really ever done much of the Easter bunny part of easter. Every once in a while we do an egg hunt if there is a community one or if we get together with family. We do always talk about the real meaning of Easter. I guess I just wanted to make sure that our children really understood what Easter was all about. The kids don't really care too much about the baskets and such. We eat entirely too much candy as it is. Aspen loves to get new Easter dresses, but the boys won't wear them, so I don't buy them. Although one year, we skipped eggs and all that completely. About a month later the kids realized that Easter had passed and were a little disappointed.
This year I asked the kids: "Do you guys feel bad that we don't do Easter baskets?"
Their response: "What are Easter baskets?"
Guess it hasn't scarred them for life to not have baskets.
So this year, we were invited to our friends' to participate in one of their traditions. They color eggs and have an egg smashing contest. You hold the egg and hit the other person's egg. The one to have the cracked egg turns it to the other end to try again. Kind of a double elimination thing per egg. The winner stays in the ring. Toby was the best at it. It is harder than it looks.
Then on Sunday, after wonderful lessons at church, we had a mini egg hunt in our back yard. And I mean mini. Each kid got to find 3 eggs. Then after that they wanted to hide the eggs and find them again. Even without the candy! I think they just like to treasure hunt.
haha,.. our family always joined in the regular easter fun, but we also focused on the real meaning,..I always look forward to my new set of clothes to represent the resurrection and we used to get special easter messages in our basket,.. Not much in the way of candy,.. mostly healthy snacks if anything and the set of clothes were the biggest part. :) if we got any candy it was usually from auntie lou's hunt. and the eggs are yummy to eat. So I don't think I missed the meaning too badly and we have a lot of fun memories. :)
ReplyDeleteI've heard about people having all of the secular easter festivities on the first day of spring - egg hunts, baskets, coloring eggs, etc. and then letting Easter be solely religious. I think that might be a cool way to be able to do both. We might do it that way next year.
ReplyDeleteyeah,.. that's pretty mch what we always did. :) just as long as you're willing to take away some of the secular when your kids start forgetting the real reasons right? or at least reminding them. :)
ReplyDeleteWe always had Easter baskets - I love Peeps and Marshmellow eggs - and they only had them at Easter then - now they make Peeps for every holiday - way to dilute the fun! And we got new clothes - and didn't get more new clothes until Christmas, so we enjoyed them.
ReplyDeleteBut we never had egg hunts - I actually didn't know much about them until we were married and had kids and other people had them.
Now we do them too - and I think the "hunt" is what kids enjoy.
Harry's mom used to do a Scripture Egg Hunt - the kids enjoyed that a lot. (There were scripture clues in the eggs that led you to the next egg. They are complicated to make up - so I never did one myself. We did one once at a youth conference that went over Easter and the youth loved it.)
I'm never organized enough to do much with Easter - but I do manage to get the See's candy - my kids feel truly deprived without it!
And you ought to be glad that your boys won't wear Easter dresses!!
ReplyDeleteI guess I worded that sentence a little wrong. Of course I meant that the boys don't like new sunday/easter clothes(not dresses).
ReplyDeleteVickie hid a bunch of eggs for the Bryan and Sariah's kids when they came over for dinner Sunday. They then took turns re-hiding them over and over again. So when it was Malachi's turn we saw him hiding all of the eggs in one spot. We tried to get him to move them around, but he wouldn't, then when they started looking for the eggs, HE ran right over to the stash and grabbed it.
ReplyDeleteHe had THAT figured out......
This was our first year without any Easter Baskets and I am sure that the kids (maddy and axel) were not that upset that the Easter Bunny did n't come. Here the ward didn't even have an Easter program so we had a long FHE on the ressurection and atonement. It was Father's Day last week so the Primary sang a song about Fathers on Sunday. It was strange not to have a nice program with lots of songs. I remember the Easter baskets from home in much the same way as Barbara. We really didn't get new clothes but twice a year and the peeps only came out at Easter and I love them to this day and mostly just the ones that come at Easter.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds fun and interesting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the spiritual meaning of Easter. Growing up we had the Easter bunny on Saturday and then Sunday was left for the Savior.