Easter Traditions

I wanted to share with you some special things we have started doing as a family to keep us focused on Christ this Easter. You may remember my posts about our Jesse Tree at Christmas. It was a wonderful way to keep us all remembering Christ and the boys loved it! I also wanted to establish some Easter traditions this year and I thought I would share those with you. Each heading below is a link to the website where you can find these traditions if you are interested in starting them with your family.


Lenten Lights-
The blog that got the 1,000 Gifts from and many other awesome spiritual nuggets is called A Holy Experience and it's written by Ann Voskamp. Each Monday, Ann posts links to sites she finds interesting. One Monday she posted a link to the Desiring God website and an Easter devotion called Lenten Lights by Noel Piper. It is a series of 8 devotions than can be done once a week during the 8 weeks of Lent leading up to Easter or can be done once a day for the week leading up to Easter. Because the boys are so young and have the attention span of flies, we chose the daily for the week leading up to Easter. The devotion centers around 7 candles- I use tea lights on a tray around a cross. One the first night you begin with all 7 candles lit and during the devotion you snuff out one candle. Then night two, you start with only 6 lit and snuff out another, until on Good Friday you snuff out the last candle. Then on the Saturday before Easter, you do not light any candles as Christ has died, his followers were devastated, it appeared darkness and sin had won. Then on Easter Sunday you light all 7 candles again because Jesus, the Light of the World, is Alive!! Sin and death have been defeated. Caleb has actually understood this devotion much more than I thought he would and we all look forward to doing it each night. Here are our Lenten Lights:

Resurrection Rolls-
On Friday, the boys and I are going to make Resurrection Rolls. These rolls are made with crescent rolls and marshmallows. You coat the marshmallow with butter, then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Then you wrap the crescent roll around the marshmallow. The crescent roll is the tomb and the marshmallow is Christ. When you bake these, the marshmallow disappears! After you take them out of the oven, you break open the tomb and Christ is not there!


Resurrection Eggs-
You can buy these at any Christian bookstore, but they will run you $10-$20. We are going to make our own this year! This version only has 5 eggs instead of the traditional 12 in the sets you buy, but some of the items in the dozen are a little above the boys' level at this point. In our version, the blue egg holds a picture of a donkey, the purple eggs has a cracker (for the Lord's Supper), the yellow egg has two nails, the green egg has a rock (that was rolled over the tomb) and the orange egg is empty, just like Christ's tomb on Easter!

Well, that's all I've got! I'll try to post some pictures later this week of us making Resurrection Rolls and doing our Resurrection Eggs. How about you? Do you have any Easter traditions in your family? Please share!