Mark

Does your family do anything special during Easter to train and teach their children about the significance of Easter? Tell us what you do (or did)!

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Mark Strohm, Jr.
Thrifty Times

BreathOfGod

We usually do the same things every Easter. We find a church that is having an easter egg hunt.....a lot of them here have those as community outreach, and so there is always a Christian message along with the fun of finding eggs. Then on the actual day of easter, we go to sunrise service someplace. If the church we attend isn't having one, then we find a church that is. Then after sunrise service we may go home for a couple of hours and hunt for easter baskets. Then it's off to Easter brunch.

Mark

I have not been to a Sunrise service since before I had kids!

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Mark Strohm, Jr.
Thrifty Times

Jax

Nor me, although I would love to again!
I try and spend time with my kids going through each of the things that happened and why and what they mean for us now.
I think easter is a very important time to remember what Jesus did and reignite the flame in our lives.

DivineFire-VX

My daughter is only a little Didda right now, but im looking forward to doing so with her as she gets older. When i was a child my Mum and Dad always made us aware of why we were overdosing on chocolate! and we would watch Christian films 'Jesus of Nazareth' and things like that. I bet they dont even show that kind of thing on TV at easter anymore.

anyway a quick thanks to Mark for pointing out this area in his welcome, i didnt notice it

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"The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever."
Isaiah 40:8 / KJV

The Saviour Lives

SweetSurrender

It's kinda' sad how when we were raising our kids, it was all gifts and egg hunts. I don't know if we realized what Easter really was all about. We never thought about it or had reason to.

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"Do not imagine that you must comprehend or understand it all before you seek and find it. For those who wait on Him, God will do more than they can conceive." Andrew Murray

GrannyG

When we were raising our children, we did not "do" Easter with baskets, bunnies, egg rolls, egg hunts, etc. Yes, we did get new clothes if we could afford them but sometimes they simply wore what they had at the time or hand-me-downs. We stressed to them that Jesus our Saviour had died for our sins, that he did so on a cross and it was bad, that he was buried in a tomb and that the stone was rolled away. We told them about the angel that appeared. We explained to the best of their understanding that Jesus was alive forevermore. Also, that because of Jesus' sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection we, too, could have new life. That our sins could be covered by his sacrifice if we but trusted Him and repented. Of course, explanation of any of this has to be age appropriate at the time for children.

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Mark

GrannyG,

How old are your children now? Easter was not as big when I was young. Now the bunny and candy end is huge. I would guess it would be very difficult to not include it in some way.

We never did the bunny or Santa parts to Easter and Christmas, but we did do candy and gifts. We also skipped Halloween, but always had a good alternative.

Easter and Christmas always included a spiritual componenet. I would love to hear HOW that was done on Easter, not what was taught. I would guess we all taught the basics, but HOW did you do it? Simple lecture?

Mark

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Mark Strohm, Jr.
Thrifty Times

handy

This is the approach our family takes:

We teach the truths of the holidays: Christmas is the time that we teach the Virgin Birth of Christ. Easter is the time we teach the death and resurrection. We read Scriptures, we watch movies, we go to church, we do advent calendars, have coloring books; whatever to get the truth that the Scriptures teach us regarding these important events.

In addition to this though, we also let the kids know that there are some fun traditions to be enjoyed as a family as well. My kids know that there isn't any relationship between Santa and the Babe, or between bunnies and the empty tomb. The Christmas Stocking and the Easter Basket don't have anything to do with the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection, but they're fun! And we enjoy them.

I think it's important to help kids understand the distinction between the truth of the holidays, and the fun traditions. I'm not saying that this approach would work for every family, but it works for ours and our kids have all the fun of the holidays that their friends have, but also learn core Biblical truths as well.