Tag: celebration

As I mentioned, we don’t do the plastic eggs and Easter bunny holiday–we celebrate it differently–and we call it Resurrection Day. It doesn’t roll off the tongue but it is a reminder of the Truth which is the whole point. I should add here that I ran into Michael’s and then the grocery store this evening to pick up some things because we are supposed to get up to 5 inches of snow tonight. Both places the cashier wished me a Happy Easter. Funny how “Happy Easter” is all right but “Merry Christma” isn’t. Fine by me. The resurrection was the point of it all anyway. 🙂

Aside from the wooden eggs celebrating Holy Week we have several other things we do to commemorate the day of Christ’s Resurrection.  They aren’t big fancy traditions full of pastel springy things and decorations instead they are quiet joyful things, reminders of what He did and why.

We spend Friday cleaning and preparing.  Friday is a day of mourning and peace.  Christ has died, Christ as risen, Christ has come again.   We pause on the died for a day and remember.  We spend the day preparing for His resurrection, cleaning everything much like the Jews prepare for the week of passover–removing all the “yeast” from the house, cleaning every corner, renewing our hearts.  Mind youI have three kids helping so things don’t get quite that clean but is a reminder.

Saturday is a day of quiet.  We only have one egg on Saturday–the closed tomb.  We wait–and while we are waiting we make gifts for friends and neighbors (we do chocolate and cookies because that is what we always do.:)  No chocolate crosses though.  We don’t have many crosses in our house–only our wedding rings which have a plain cutout cross and the wedding cross from our wedding cake.  The cross was an instrument of torture so no chocolate crosses–actually no shaped candy, lots of covered and filled but no shaped ones.)

And Sunday.  Resurrection Sunday is a day of great joy.  I wake extra early and wake each of the children sharing the good news that He is risen. They each bath–symbolizing being cleansed in the blood, then put on their new clothes–a symbol of our new self.  We eat breakfast together (usually pancakes) then we bake bread together to be eaten with dinner.

Later, for our time of worship we hide all our holy week eggs again so the kids get one last chance to find them all–then they tell the final story of the triumph of Christ over death. We sing songs of His triumph and resurrection. They get a small gift —usually something crafty that they can do while waiting for grandparents who will likely bring some sort of lamb type thing because they like to buy them stuffed things and Shamus and I say no bunnies or chicks.

Then for dinner we have lamb–another symbol, as well as the fresh baked bread and our favorite celebratory foods.

And so it goes. It is nothing compared to the typical Easter Celebration that others do but it is rich in symbolism and joy.