UPDATED: Congratulations to the following 50 winners who were randomly chosen to win a copy of Putting God Back in the Holidays: Celebrate Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Birthdays, and 12 Other Special Occasions with Purpose.
All winners will be receiving an email with further instructions. Congratulations!
The winners are:
9) VickyS, 15) Heather, 34) Carrie Wimbish, 40) Leigh F., 50) Jennifer, 69) Kris, 72) Jamie P., 87) Morgan, 96) Charisa, 105) BethA, 119) Jo at the Creative Collage, 122) courtney, 128) Juanita, 139) Jules, 154) Sheila, 166) Amanda, 172) Julie, 188) Georgiana, 206) Susan, 210) Maria, 212) Ashley, 234) Kayla, 239) Mary Lynn, 243) Leah Schroeder, 249) Jen, 257) Emily, 266) laura, 270) SoCalLynn, 282) Bobbi lynn Miller, 284) Jennifer, 290) Marlene, 301) Angela Harris, 307) Heidi, 317) Paula, 319) Rachel, 327) Catherine, 334) Lynn, 341) Krista C., 354) Malory H, 359) Christin, 363) Lisa K, 370) Darcy, 378) Sara @ Happy Brown House, 387) Annie, 398) Carol Swan, 415) Robin in New Jersey, 419) Suanna, 423) Joni, 445) knmkendall, 455) Tasha
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against chocolate.
If you follow me on twitter you know this to be true. Candy coated analogies make me smile and I never think it’s too early in the day to be making brownies. But come a day like Easter and suddenly
I feel lost between the peeps and the chocolate bunnies when it comes to translating what all this is really about for my kids.
They’re still young. But I still want them to grow up each year into a more mature understanding of why Easter morning is so exciting – an excitement that transcends their football-shaped Easter egg baskets.
I want their eyes to grow wide with the wonder of the Good News and not just their candy stash.
I want their hearts to be as full as their tummies.
I want Jesus and not the inevitable sugar high of year’s past to define the day.
But the thing is, I am not good at dreaming up meaningful crafts. I am not the mom who will beautifully dye and decorate eggs or create an Easter tree. I admire Spring wreaths from afar and instead let my boys wallow in the Spring mud up close.
So, it was with a sense of relief that I discovered Putting God Back in the Holidays: Celebrate Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Birthdays, and 12 Other Special Occasions with Purpose. Because Bill and Penny Thrasher had already done the hard work of putting together a list of meaningful ways for families to celebrate Good Friday and Easter.
From baking Resurrection Buns, making lego tombs, memorizing Scripture, unpacking the meaning behind the events, or doing historical research on how the date for Easter is determined – the book is a family-friendly approach to making this day (and many others that are just as meaningful) relevant and accessible to all ages.
And we are so excited to have FIFTY copies from Moody Publishers to pass on to you and your families in time for this most special of holidays!
Yup, you heard me right! One copy for every 10 comments – up to 500 comments and 50 books.
It’s easy to enter: Just leave a comment sharing one of your family’s favorite ways of celebrating Easter.
We’ll leave the contest open until we hit 500 comments and all 50 books have found good homes.
And as you look for meaningful ways to celebrate the season, you might also want to check our online store for great Easter cards and commemorative gifts.
Blessings from our home to yours in this beautiful season.
By Lisa-Jo, who’s delighted to serve as the community manager for (in)courage.
Leave a Comment
Yes! These things matter to me as a mom too. I love how much my boys love some things we have done, like resurrection buns, and each year I feel in this fight to protect what Easter means to our family! 🙂 I would love this book!
Oh how I would love to win this!
This year we turned our Christmas tree into a cross at the beginning of Lent. When we have family devotions at breakfast, my husband finds a passage that includes one of the names of Jesus. Then we write the name on a heart and hang it on the cross.
It is simple, and we don’t do it every day, but it has been a really beautiful new tradition in our home.
Wow- this book sounds perfect as I’m teaching my children about the holidays!
The kids love their Ressurection Eggs. A dozen plastic eggs in a carton with small objects in each one to represent something about Easter (a piece of leather for the whips, a pair of dice, a small cross, etc).
We’ve made empty tombs in the past by putting potting soil in the end of one leg of a pair of tights (nylons? to an American?). the grass seeds go into the soil too, and then this is shaped over an empty pot laid on it’s side. Decorated with twigs and other items to represent trees etc and keep spraying with water and hopefully your grass should grow up over your hill!
My family has a Polish heritage and every Easter we get together and make tons of traditional Polish foods. It is an amazing time together and it is such a blessing to have the recipes and traditions that I can share with my children (when I have them of course) 🙂
This sounds like such a wonderful book. I may have to try the lego idea with my son!
The Easter Bunny always left my sister and I a kite in our baskets. Some of my fondest memories of growing up was the Easter Sundays we spent together at a park flying our kites and hunting eggs. Not many of my memories of growing up are so positive, but this tradition made such ab impact on me that I have passed it along to my young sons. It’s a great way to enjoy and appreciate God’s creation and our family.
As a child I loved hearing my mom read the story of Christ rising from the tomb. As an adult I love going to my church’s Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services and feeling so sad and taken aback at what Christ endured and to know that in the next morning He is Risen. Gloriously Risen! Can’t wait to read this book!
We celebrate Easter by going to my parent’s house and having lunch and just fellowshipping together with them. The kids love going to see them and spending the day with them.
Sounds like a great book! We always go to service as a family and have a huge gathering for an Easter hunt. To have everyone together is the best!
Family. Just simply spending the holiday with family, going to church, easter eggs, dinner, peace. And some decorations. 🙂 I would love to learn some tips on taking it to another level and honoring God during the holiday seasons.
my fiance and i both live away from our families, which means we will spend many holidays travelling – consequently we’re working to put practices in place that transcend our space – attending a church service, for example, or walking through a lenten study. at christmas we’ve made a commitment to attend christmas day services. i’m hoping we can add to the commitment with a good friday service.
Singing songs about the Easter were some of my favorite childhood Easter memories. For a while we were able to attend a local Passion Play and it really brought the story to life.
Wow! This sounds fantastic. As a child I loved coming home from church with the excitement of hunting for eggs. As an adult, I struggle with the purpose of this tradition but realize how much it means to my step-son, niece, nephews, and how much it will mean to my baby. I hope to be able to add a more biblical tradition to our holidays.
Sounds just like the book I am looking for. Hope I win one. We try to celebrate our Easter with a purpose but that doesn’t always happen. We do go to church and celebrate the meaning of Easter there.
Growing up I remember the sunrise services on Easter morning. Wearing the new dress and shoes and bonnet! After service we would have a huge waffle breakfast at church with everyone there talking and us kids were playing. After breakfast we then had Sunday school. It was so much fun!
As an adult, until I got back into church 6 years ago I didn’t have God in the holiday at all. I pushed away from him a long time ago and I wasn’t teaching my kids. They have now been in church the majority of their lives with me and I am so happy and excited to hear my kids discuss together the events of Easter!
LOVE IT!!! What an awesome resource this book will be for all of us trying to raise our child(ren) in a Godly manner. We love the holidays and their special meanings – but I love the very practical ideas that are suggested. Hope to win one!
I work with at-risk children (Kdg-12th grade) in a small rural school and often have very meaningful conversations when they have questions or don’t understand things. This would provide great ways to talk with them with hands-on activities to help them. Thanks for sharing this resource!
My family and I celebrate throughout Easter season as it coincides with the time that God chose to heal my Mum after 15 years of her being dependant on a wheelchair and crutches. She suffered from a back-bone degenerating disease and stage 4 Endometriosis, but 7 years ago, on April 9th – she was healed completely following a prophetic prayer meeting. Easter used to mean a time of silent observance, of public reverence. Our hearts of appreciation towards Christ were heavy – after all, He paid the cost. But from that day 7 years ago till now, we were given a new revelation. Easter has become a season of overwhelming joy and gratitude for us as a family – we hold praise and worship services in our home, healing fire prayer meetings and invite the local community and friends. We give out hand-made Easter cards with messages of encouragement to people on the street and we celebrate His resurrection, which made resurrection for each of us not only a possibility, but a reality. We are so, so thankful to Him. And have learned, as Anne Voskamp would say ‘All is grace’ x
We love being with friends.
This would be great to have!!! Awesome give away!!! We celebrate Passover, but its hard to not get caught up in the Egg hunts and baskets. I would love to see what the authors come up with.
We have taken this idea from Noel Piper and her book Treasuring God in our Traditions, but our girls love making an “Easter mountain,” as they call it. It’s a salt dough mountain on which we make stick figures made out of pipe cleaners act out the events leading up to Good Friday. Then we put the Jesus figure in the tomb of the mountain, where he stays until Sunday morning. They wake up that morning SO excited to come down and find “Jesus” alive and standing, arms raised, on the mountain! It’s so simple, but they really get into it! Thanks for the giveaway!!
Our favourite Easter celebrations are the reading of “Caleb’s Lamb” in the week before Christmas and then on Good Friday, the making of “Easter Caves”. My very clever husband invented Easter Caves and we’ve introduced them to a few friends now… Take a bowl, turn it upside down, cover it with baking paper and then chocolate. We add baby marshmallows, peanuts and lollies etc to the melted chocolate. When it’s hard, remove the bowl and place the chocolate cave on a flat plate and surround the cave with green dyed coconut (grass). Add a cross to the top if you like and you have a chocolate version of the place of Jesus’ death and burial. Keep it in the fridge and don’t let the kids eat it until Easter morn. Remind them a hundred times on Friday and Saturday, every time they ask if they can eat the Easter cave yet, that Jesus died and was raised on the third day, and they have to wait until He “comes alive again” before they celebrate by eating the chocolate.
I’d love some new ways to celebrate though and would love to win this book 🙂
We have celebrated in various ways – a seder meal that our kids researched and prepared, resurrection cookies that you put in the oven Saturday night & are hollow when you wake up Sunday morning, the traditional Russian greeting “He is Risen!” and response “He is Risen indeed!” – but always look forward to celebrating with our church family. We are continually on the look out for new ways to make the day & life’s journey spiritually significant for our family.
Our traditions vary every year depending on where my family is. Would love this book though!
What a great sounding book! We usually celebrate easter with an easter tree and church and brunch as a family, but I would really like to expand our celebration. Even though we fight it, the consumerist view of Easter is seeping in and my kids struggle with focusing on the easter basket, and the ‘stuff’ rather than Christ. I would love more ideas of how to make Easter more meaningful and worshipful! Thanks for the opportunity!
I’d love to have the book! My older two children went to ( and graduated from) a Christian K-12 school. My six year old is in a public school, and I’m curious to see how Easter is going to be approached there.
Years ago I made a felt banner that had symbols that we attached as we followed Christ’s road to the cross. It began with His birth and went through to the crucifixion and burial. On Saturday night we flipped the banner and it showed the resurrected Jesus. Each day we discussed some aspect of Jesus’ life. It was a great way to focus my children’s attention on why we really celebrate Easter.
We invite family and friends to an egg hunt and hide resurrection eggs also, then gather on the front steps and whoever finds the numbered eggs gets to read the scripture inside. This book sounds amazing, thanks for the opportunity to win!
We always make Resurrection Cookies the night before, tape the oven closed and discover the “empty tomb” in the morning. Then we head out to the sunrise service at our church. We usually watch a movie like Jesus of Nazareth that week also. Even when my last child is grown and gone I will still do these things we’ve done for so many years.
This book sounds amazing. Thanks for the opportunity.
Resurrection Eggs and usually a chocolate cross for each child.
Looks like a great book! thx
Sadly, Ive never made the effort to make resurrection cookies with my kids but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for the 10 years Ive been a mom…perhaps this is the year that I remember to keep the important stuff where it should be. So this time next year, maybe I can actually say that resurrection cookies are my family’s favorite way to do just that.
This year we are looking forward to preparing a Seder meal for the first time. We have also been reading a Lenten devotional after dinner each night. This is a very much appreciated post as we also have been looking for manful ways to celebrate Easter. Lots of great ideas. Thank you.
Each year at Easter we go to a Sunrise Service at a local Gun Club. They have a lake and my family joins others down by the lake. We sing and a local pastor comes and delivers a message. It is a great way to start Easter off and celebrate the true meaning of the holiday.
We strip our Christmas tree of its branches and turn it into a cross for Easter as a reminder for our kids (and us!) that we can’t celebrate Easter without Christmas and that we wouldn’t have a reason to celebrate Christmas if Easter hadn’t happened too.
our family blog: http://www.dinglefest.com
special needs ministry blog: http://www.theworksofgoddisplayed.com
The books sounds great. I always love creative ideas of helping the girls with Christ centered holidays. We do resurrection eggs and tomb buns on Easter morning. We also borrow Ann Voskamp’s idea of a prayer garden pot on our dining rooms table, with a twig cross and a tile path leading to a clay tomb, a small bowl of water with stones and shells for a pond, moss, and small plants. The tomb has a small linen cloth that is gone on Easter morning. We also read the Resurrection story from the Jesus Bible Storybook.
We celebrate by spending time with loved ones and time in worship.
i really struggle with this. we have Ressurection Eggs and discuss them frequently but that’s about it.
We’ve done the Resurrection Eggs in the past, but my favorite way to celebrate Easter is with our church’s Sunrise Service in the cemetary on Easter Sunday. Later in the afternoon, we eat with family!
this would be great! this year my oldest is probably old enough to start the resurrection eggs 🙂
Our favorite way to celebrate Easter is attending worship Easter morning!
this is perfect! Even if I don’t win one, I’ll be buying this! My son is 18 months and I’m learning EVERYTHING. Trying to bring this boy up in faith is certainly a small challenge in this age of instant gratification. Thanks for doing this or I may never have seen the book!!
I think that book is a really good one to give away at Easter time because, besides going to church, our other Easter traditions are pretty secular: having our daughter collect candy and possibly making a lamb cake as my grandma used to for the family. At MOPS today our speaker talked to us about the importance of making and carrying out family traditions. I bet this book offers many of those.
This book looks like an incredible resource.
My extended family has always had an egg hunt, and both little and big kids love it. Last year we made the Resurrection Story Cookies for the first time. I’d love to find more meaningful activities to do in our home Easter morning.
We have always started with going to church together on Easter…sometimes, not very often it has been a Sunrise service. And then we have a Jelly Bean Hunt….now we have it for our 5 grandchildren, but our adult kids still want to get involved in it. The child who collects the most jelly beans wins the grand prize $5.
Sounds like a great book! Hope you are able to give away all 50 copies. And hope I win one of them!
It’s so special to be able to share with our young boys the real meaning of this holiday. Easter Sunday is a glorious day beginning with time spent celebrating Christ’s resurrection with our church family, followed by a special dinner with our extended family! We do manage to enjoy some chocolate candy and dye some eggs along the way, too! 🙂
We celebrate Passover as a part of the holiday-great way to understand Easter!
We do resurrection eggs. This year we are looking for a new way to make the day meaningful as my boys are getting older. We read Amon this year and are enjoying that. I also picked up a count down calendar that has a different challenge for each day of Lent.
This is the first year of really doing things with our little boys and I’ve picked a book for each week in April (Like Parable of the Lily) and than have a few crafts to do that reinforce what the book teaches. I want my kids to enjoy the “fun” around the holiday but really, to understand what it really means.
I would love to have this book! I have an 18 month and another on the way, so we don’t really have any special ways to celebrate with the kids but would to start our own traditions!
I find myself often in the same predicament. The world is calling out a different message on these holy-days. I find myself frustrated that maybe I don’t send a better message for my tots. But I keep on keeping on :o) I would love to win this one, but consider purchasing if I don’t win, if our budget allows :o)
My childhood church always had a wooden cross outside during the Easter season. On Easter morning the cross would “come alive” as we all brought fresh flower to weave into the wire that covered the surface of the cross. Seeing it go from plain wood to a beautiful cross of flowers was great symbolism!
This is definitely a struggle for me, as well. Would love to have a read this and begin some new traditions with real purpose.
Our family enjoys Easter traditions with our church family. I would LOVE some ideas on how to celebrate Christ during this time at home!
Sunrise service on my husband’s grandparent’s farm. family and a few friends followed by breakfast make this a special morning.
One of our favorite ways of celebrating Easter is learning the Resurrection story using our Resurrection Eggs. I am always looking for new and fun ways to weave Christ into the holidays. Sounds like this book would be an awesome resource.
I love celebrations and making the holidays special! A tradition that my mother-in-law taught me is having a tomb cake for Easter!! Here is ours from a few years ago:
http://candacemercyisnew.blogspot.com/2009/04/our-tomb-cake.html
I just did a bundt cake and cut it in half, standing it up so it was round like a tomb!! Love it!! I would love to win this book to make some new traditions with my children!
I have really been wanting this book! It looks so great! We have really struggled with holidays as we live close to my in-laws and they want to do things very differently than what we want for our children. On Easter we eat with my in-laws and then go visit other family members for the afternoon.
I would love this book!! This will be our second year to have an extended family Easter egg hunt and dinner. I am trying very hard to put Christ back in Christmas and Easter! Would love some help!
We’ve involved the boys for years in a family Lenten sacrifice. My favorite was the year we gave up all movies, Netflix, etc and saved it all to buy an animal from the heifer project.
Spending Easter at my grandparents house was my FAVORITE. Of course, the Easter egg hunt on all that land was super fun. 🙂
I would love this book! When I start having kids, I’d love to start some traditions…my family was never great at traditions, and I’d like to change that.
This book sounds awesome. I’d love to have the think it up taken out of planning for me!
I love the traditions that this time of year bring. I still decorate Easter eggs with them. We always do one with a cross on it and talk about the symbolism. My kids have also given them away while sharing the good news. I try to make sure they know the Easter bunny leaves goddies just like Santa, but the best gift was the gift of Jesus and salvation. Thanks for allowing me to share!
Easter is never as bad as Christmas, for me, when it comes to being overwhelmed with “stuff” and losing what should be the true focus.
We always make resurrection cookies the night before, the ones where the ingredients all have related bible passages and then you put them in the tomb (oven), sealing it with tape (which makes my kids want to seal the oven with tape for the next few months). In the morning, the tomb cookies are empty (hollow)!
The kids look forward to it every year!
I find this struggle with both Easter and Christmas. It’s especially hard with in-laws who embrace the fantasy aspect of the holidays.
We use the resurrection eggs, and do the bible reading with each (spread out over a few weeks). The kids love their Easter books and we read them often. And no matter where we’re spending Easter, we do find a church to spend time with others and glory in His resurrection.
I’m not too creative and it’s so easy to get bombarded with stuff when you go into stores, so I do my best to keep things as simple as I can so I don’t get swept away into it, either.
Easter is my favourite time of year….spring, and new life! I love celebrating with our family, especially at our Easter brunch. This book would be wonderful for our grandchildren!
Blessings!
I love, all Easter week, taking it slow… savoring that which this day really means, for our lives, for our redemption. Being deliberate about what we say and do and watch and wear and eat… in an effort to soak up the most understanding from that blessed event. He is Risen!
We love Lenten Lights, by Noel Piper. We celebrate advent as a family, so I love the symbolism of blowing out the candles as we approach Good Friday, and then lighting them all with rejoicing on Easter morning, because Jesus is Alive!
We have enjoyed The Hymns for a Kids Heart – Passion Hymns by Joni Tada & Bobbie Wolgemuth. Since hymns are rarely used in churches today, I enjoy reminding my kids of the message of the cross through these wonderful hymns of the faith.
We save our Christmas tree every year and when spring comes, we cut off the branches. We make it into a cross and have it sitting in the Christmas tree stand in our front room. It is a visual reminder in the days leading up to Easter of what we are celebrating. We gather around it some evenings to do resurrection eggs or family worship and talk about the meaning of Easter.
Our main way of celebrating together as a family is attending the Easter service at church together!
My entire extended family attends our Easter morning services at church, followed by a huge family lunch, then an easter egg hunt for the kiddos! This has been happening every year since I was born. Now, I get to include my own children!
I would love to have this book, we as a family are always trying to grow closer to God and come up with ways to celebrate Him and His blessings and gifts during our holiday celebrations!
Our kids are still very young, but this year we’re attempting to go through our church’s Lent devotion with them. It’s very rich to know we’re doing the same thing as other families across our city.
We dye eggs and make sure that we take time for the resurrection eggs.
The thing we do as a family that is so meaningful for me is we all go to church together. My husband does not attend church with my daughter and I. But, on Christmas and Easter, he chooses to go. I thank God for those two times and pray that his heart will be filled and he will want to go again and again.
I have an almost 3 and a 4 year old. We are looking for good ways to begin Easter traditions as a family. Am hoping to be able to use this book!! So far, our Easter celebration has included a focused time with extended family, a good meal, a wonderful church service, and LOTS of family pictures! Thanks for sharing this!
This seems to be just what I was looking for. My husband and I have been talking about ways to make the holidays less commercial. Our boys are still toddlers and so we want them to understand the true meanings early. I bought the Lent/Advent wreat from Ann Voskamp and am looking forward to making that part of our tradition in anticipating the days that lead to Christmas and Easter.
We go to church together to hear our favorite gospel singer who is always scheduled on Easter each year. Then we spend time with family during the afternoon. This year may be different due to my husband currently not attending church, but I did invite him last night to go with us. And if he doesn’t, I’ll have to resolve to make it a good day anyhow. After all, it’s a celebration of our Lord’s resurrection first and foremost.
What a great Gift!!!
We have been doing a mini easter garden. We get a large pan and fill it with potting soil and sprinkle grass seed or sprouting seed into the soil. We then create a tomb out of rock and a path leading to the tomb. By Easter, the grass has sprouted and on easter morning i have decorated with flowers, potted a new mini flower or plant and opened the tomb to see he has risen.
It is fun to see the change from before and after, and the kids love to do this!!! they look forward to watering it, watching it grow and watching it transform into New LIFE!!
This book would be quite important to me, as I (we, my husband and I) are expecting our first child this September. I want holidays to be memorable and fun – filled with traditions. I definitely want our children to enjoy the fun of holidays but also know why we are truly celebrating.
We try attending a sunrise service on Easter Sunday. Love watching His glory shine in the am. Would love to learn other ways to celebrate.
We attend the church Easter Egg Hunt, where the preacher does the resurrection eggs. Always fun!
This would be an awesome gift for us as I just accepted Christ a few years ago and have 3 small children. We have a great church, awana, etc but need help with holidays in our own home. Fingers crossed!!!
oh this sounds like a wonderful book.
i enjoy getting up early with our family for the sunrise service, eating breakfast at church, and enjoying an afternoon together as a family.
Our family enjoys dyeing eggs and celebrating with extended family. Thank you for the giveaway.
What a great giveaway! Our traditions of Easter past have always included church, wonderful time with family and friends… but often too much focus on the “fluff” of Easter. This year we are determined as a family to focus on the true reason we celebrate, the reason every day should be a day of celebration… our Lord Jesus Christ, who has risen! Thank you for this giveaway… for helping families to focus on what is truly important !
In my everday conversations with my girls I am constantly looking for analogies. It’s really neat a lot of times because I know they have come directly from the Holy Spririt. But I can’t remember a time when I looked for ways to do this with Easter goodies! How sad!! My pen and paper are coming out now and I am going to work on this. Next year I will have one to share:) Thanks for this reminder, I so needed it!
Blessings,
Kelli
That sounds like a wonderful book! We celebrate by going to church in the morning. Then we have a huge family meal and an Easter egg hunt for all the cousins. After the season of Lent, we look forward to celebrating our risen Lord.
I would love this book for several reasons. One, my kids are growing fast – one just moved out on his own this last summer and the last in college. My husband and I will be alone for Easter for the first time and I’m not sure how to deal with it, frankly. I love Easter more than Christmas, and yet our society makes it much more difficult, I think, to celebrate appropriately. Second, my maiden name is Thrasher and my father’s name is Bill Thrasher (not the writer of this book). That’s such a coincidence! Third, growing up, Easter was always so special. My mom was a single parent with little money and she always did what she could to make Easter special. One year, she made my Easter basked from an old coat box and the tiniest doll was in the middle, on the fake “grass”, surrounded by candies. It was so beautiful and I will never forget it.
Our favorite Easter tradition is gathering on my mother-in-law’s front porch to watch the kids run, play and find eggs. Her big front porch is a favorite place to reflect on blessings with those I love most.
Our family always attended a sunrise Easter service and had breakfast at church. Being together with our extended family has always been an important part of holiday traditions.
My husband & I wanted to give our boys the fun ‘Easter’ experiences – egg hunts, gift-filled baskets & candy – without distracting from the real meaning of Easter. So, each year we have a Spring Celebration a few weeks before Easter, and that is when we do those fun things. That way when Easter comes, we can really focus on the true meaning of Easter. Last year we made a flour-and-water-dough tomb and baked it. The boys painted it and made stick figures for the Easter story. I’d love some other ideas & this book sounds great!
One of our favorite Easter traditions is observing a Christian Seder meal with our church family on Maundy Thursday before Easter. It highlights the significance of the “Last Supper” and what we do together in remembrance of him during communion/Lord’s Supper.
Our church has started calling Easter, Resurrection Sunday, which redirects the meaning in our minds and I find myself doing that too more often as the years go by.
What a neat book! Would love to have it!
The thing we have done this year and last is weekly or daily things up to easter. An Easter tree that we had specific ornaments to that have a Bible verse with it…or an Easter basket with daily things we pick out to do (variety of things from songs to acts of service) each day during Lent.
My children loved acting out, complete with their own homemade costumes, the Christmas and the Easter story. They did it all with a little help from Mom gathering the materials they can use. Then we’d have a family night where they would put on their drama. Of course we’d have cameras ready. We have many wonderful memories.
We also never passed up a chance to read them the Bible and Bible story books about the holidays we were approaching.
For those of you who feel like you haven’t done enough, take heart. Just start with reading the Bible with your children. Children love it when their parents take seriously reading from God’s Word. When you start with that, you may be amazed what your children will come up with to celebrate Easter! They have great imaginations.
We enjoy time with family, my husband grilling our dinner, an easter egg hunt and a morning spent at church. I would love to learn more ways to make the focus more on God and less on candy. We are celebrating a Passover meal on April 17th to share where our roots came from.
We have a baby on the way. Joye Thacker will arrive to this world in June. I am not her mother, I am her aunt. When the economy sunk, my brother and his young wife lost all that they had- so my wonderful husband invited them to live with us. That was almost a year ago. Now Baby Joye is on her way. Since moving in with us my brother and his wife have both accepted Christ and been baptized. They desire to raise Joye in a christian home. I was so excited to hear about this book, as they are new christians and may need a little help with ideas to ensure baby Joye knows the true meaning of the holidays we celebrate. Thanks for sharing, this book is a must for their library!
We have always tried to bring the spiritual meaning of each holiday to the forefront – rather than focusing on all the other traditions. It is still fun to search for eggs (they really enjoyed making the resurrection buns) & open presents on Christmas, but those are all secondary. … and our young boys still enjoy it all. I would love to learn some new ways to celebrate with them! Thanks!
We are enjoying our Lenten journey with Ann Voskamp’s wreath. What a blessing it was during Advent. . .and now during Lent. It is a tradition that will contiue with our family for years to come, I’m sure.
Blessings,
Mary
We attend church services, have lunch with family then an easter egg hunt. Now that my daughter isolder we are going to get some resurrection eggs.
We usually do the meringue resurrection cookies….
Wow, this is the book I was waiting for and I totally agree with the authors. I remember death and ressurrection with my little kids and then we wait Sunday with excitment because of the ressurrection and all its meaning for our lives.
love,
Karina from Brazil.
We always start the day by going to church, then home for a family meal in the dining room, no less! Last year, tho’, our day started a bit earlier. We went to the 6:00 am service. I wasn’t too keen on getting up so early, but it was a beautiful, moving time of celebrating the risen Lord. Planning on doing it again this year!
On Maundy Thursday, we watch the movie “The Passion of the Christ” with other adult friends. Then on Easter Sunday, we got to church, get together with family and have an Easter Egg hunt.
This book sounds great. I’m always looking for meaningful ideas to use with my boys. We do resurrection eggs every year.
We use the Resurrection Eggs to tell the Easter story. My girls live this tradition!
What a great book! We always have an Easter brunch with friends on the Saturday. A time to enjoy each other and share what we are thankful for while the kids hunt for eggs.
What a great book! I, too, struggle with making the holidays fun but meaningful. I want my boys to know it is so much more than just finding the golden egg with 5 dollars in it!! Thank you!
Great idea on this book! I am always working on thinking of ways to apply Biblical truths in everyday life. When we give gifts at Easter, we make them something that will help our children’s spiritual walk. Then, we do the candy thing the day after Easter and allow them to choose their own special treat at the store. That way, the emphasis is on Jesus the day we celebrate His resurrection, not on the candy hunt. Blessings
My daughter makes Resurrection cookies for her children–ages 5, 3, and 1. You’ve given me some good food for thought and I think I’ll go back to Sam’s Club and get some of the Easter storybooks they’re selling, instead of all the chocolate and jelly beans I had planned.
When my girls were preschool age, we would read the Miss Patty Cake book over and over until it finally fell apart! Now that they are in elementary school, we still read Children’s storybooks about the Easter events, but also we try to push their understanding by talking more and more about they why of Easter. I don’t want them to grow up just thinking that it’s just a neat story that we celebrate every spring, but to understand (as best they can) that it was an overwhelming show of love that God would send Jesus to die for us and also to understand the seriousness of sin and how offensive it is to a Holy God. It is tough because I don’t want to overwhelm them with the brutality of the crucifixion, but I don’t want them to think that it’s all pretty and happy either. Maybe this book can help me find the balance!
We celebrate Easter by just fellowshipping together with family. The kids love seeing their grandparents and spending the day with them.
This year we start a new tradition. One that begins with a sunrise service and ends with an Easter Ham.
Being newer Christians, I don’t think we have come up wtih some strong Easter traditions yet. However, my favorite thing that we do on Good Friday is go to chruch and listen to the Good Friday Cantata called: The Seven Last Words of Christ. My really sensitive daughter at first was very scared by some of the music. Now she is used to it. It is a very touching way to walk through Jesus crucifixtion.
Easter starts early for us…… First its a walk through our church remembering everything Jesus went through and ending in nailing our troubles on a cross. Then its off to my in-laws for dinner, games and Family 🙂
This looks like a great book! My children are quite young, but I really want to start instilling them with the true meaning of things, not just the commercialized aspects. My favorite tradition is inviting new friends to church and gathering with family.
This looks like a great book! Thank you for offering this.
We usually celebrate Easter by having Palm Sunday dinner with everyone on my side of the family and Easter Dinner with my husband’s side of the family.
Would love to read this book! We don’t have any Easter traditions but always look forward to a special Sunday service and fellowship/food with friends & family.
I love the idea of going from the Easter bunny back to Christ. We have returned to simple candies in our girls’ Easter Baskets and have tried to focus more on Christ.
What a wonderful book! I struggle more with Christmas than Easter. Easter is such a beautiful day for our family and has since my husband and I got married. Now that we have children, we have not changed the tradition much. We attend our early church service (babes go to Sunday school), we greet friends and fellow members at church, head home and family & friends are more than welcome to join us in our home for the rest of the day. But the rest of our day is filled with fellowship (a meal as well) and gratitude for the Grace that we have been shown.
My husband and I loved going to Easter vigil mass before my daughter was born. I can’t wait until she is old enough to join us. It is such a beautiful service! For now, one of my favorite Easter celebrations is my husband getting up early on Easter to make his mom’s Rolly-Polly’s – twisted dough with sprinkled cinnamon. They are yummy, but even more than that, I love that my husband is carrying on this family tradition.
Always trying to teach the real meaning of every holiday- but candy always causes a fog for a 4 year old. Would love to start some traditions to move beyond the egg hunts! Right now decorating eggs and spending time together is our only tradition.
Our family serves breakfast at a half-way house with other families in our church on Easter morning.
Thank you for this generous give away!
This will be the first year my husband and I BOTH will be celebrating Easter as Christians!!! We will attend a breakfast and service at our church and then take it from there. I love the idea of this book!!!
I am a mom of a 3 year old. This year is going to be the first year that we have really had the opportunity to start teaching her what all of the holidays truely mean. I would love the chance to read this book and to start teaching her the true meaning behind the holidays. Not just the commercial meaning.
How much I feel the tug to get back to the reason for the season..
Our family celebrates Easter by attending Church, by decorating the home with spring time things that remind us of life renewed and a long standing tradition is the making and eating of the bunny cake – I think it will be a sheep cake this year!
One of my favorite traditions growing up was watching the stations of the cross acted out at our church. It just made Easter seem more real to me. I still struggle with how to make Easter more about Jesus and less about bunnies and eggs for my little ones. I want them to know what Easter is really about and make that our focus.
Oh, I would love to win this!! I can so relate to the post – I read creative ways that others are doing to teach their children and I feel overwhelmed!
We always attend a city-wide Good Friday service as a family and this year I am attempting to put together a combination between an Advent calendar and resurrection eggs to make the days up to Easter more special. Thanks for the opportunity to win this book!
This book looks great. I have been trying to put as much emphasis on why we celebrate holidays as the commercial aspect. We will attend a Good Friday service, make resurrection cookies. And am always on the look out for more ideas.
We bake resurrection cookies each year.
we go to church( once we did a sunrise service and that was really special) and then come home and have a ham dinner. no egg hunts or bunnies involved:)
Looks like a great book…I could use some new ideas!
We used to start off Easter morning by attending a sun(Son)-rise service, but now with a 2 and 3 year old, it is heard to get out of the house that early. We also celebrate Easter by attending Church and then sharing a meal with our family! We also have many great memories of easter egg hunts outside in the afternoons for the little ones.
We do a homemade version of the ressurection eggs that my girls love. We love to read through the Bible stories in one of our favorite Bible story books The Jesus StoryBook Bible. We make the Easter Story Cookies http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easter-Story-Cookies/Detail.aspx that tell the lesson on Easter as you make the cookies and leave them in the oven overnight in the morning they are hollow like the empty tomb. So excited to find this great book full of more ideas. I must say also we have started Ann Voskamp’s Easter Tree http://www.aholyexperience.com/2011/03/free-easter-devotional-with-easter-passion-tree-because-easters-more-important-than-christmas/with the beautiful pictures and devotions.
I made a set of resurrection eggs last year and got the book that goes with it – we’ll read that again this year… my boys loved the opening of each egg as we read the story…
My girls would LOVE this! I try to do 2 things. We make a Resurrection cake in the shape of the cross and decorate it with beautiful flowers. And I give them an Easter basket full of things that I try to make mean something-a lamb stuffed animal because Jesus is the shepard, a new book mark to mark the Easter story in their Bible, some sort of butterfly jewelry to recognize our new life, etc.
What a wonderful purposeful book… we can get so caught up in crafts to celebrate the holidays and forget the true message of these holidays…. I teach and love to do crafts and am always looking for these types of books to help me keep the “teach” the correct message for each holiday… I would love a book like this… Thanks for the opportunity to obtain one…
This looks like an awesome book! We are doing the resurrection eggs with our almost 3 year old (waiting for our referral for child #2 through adoption) and reading the Easter story board book. We also make a list daily of all the things we are thankful for and pray about each one and thank God for all that he has done for us. This book would be great to have – thank you for the opportunity to share this incredible book with our children. Blessings to you!
We celebrate by going to our church together as a family and worshipping our great God with our church family, then sharing a meal with extended family. We also love to decorate eggs and have an egg hunt outside, talking about how Jesus is the One who ultimately has searched us out in our sin.
We are like you, looking for ways to make the holidays more meaningful with the Lord.
This year we are blessed by Ann Voskamp’s Easter tree devotional beginning today.
I remember Easter as a child. Every Easter was an ordeal, I was made to wear dresses that had more frills than fabric and cowered in fear as the curling iron of death came near my forehead for I was SURE it would burn me to death. But after all of that it became a time of celebration and candy. My mother taught me of the true meaning of WHY we celebrate, but sometimes the candy was more important.
I don’t have kids but I constantly think of ways to instruct them in the way of God. One way that came to mind for Easter is searching for the Easter basket, likening the child’s surprise to the surprise of Mary when she found the tomb empty. Just as my child receieves a gift on Easter morning, we too recieved a gift: the gift of salvation, freedom from sin and eternal life.
I totally understand where you are coming from!! I struggle very much with this….for Easter we go to the Sunrise service and out church does a trunk hop where we have something like the resurrection eggs and other different approaches to allow the kids to have fun but still let them know the true meaning. At Christmas we celebrate Jesus’s birthday..not alot but its a start…I hope to find more ways to help the understand the true importance
We’ve found reconnecting Easter to Passover and all it’s imagery to be very meaningful. We celebrate with a Seder meal each Year.
We use the resurrection eggs every year to talk about and read from Scripture what Easter really means! Easter Sunday is more about celebrating at church than bunnies & chicks!
My family always did the usual Easter egg hunt and lots of food. However, I’m going to be Baptized this Easter an officially become a Christian! Finally at the age of 36 I’ve discovered my path to faith! So, from now on Easter will be a celebration of not only of Jesus but of me finding Him!
I love waking up Easter morning and having a big breakfast with the family. This book sounds like just what I need because I’ve been feeling really convicted for a while now to incorporate more of Jesus into the holidays but wasn’t sure how, like you! Thanks for this opportunity!
We begin the day by attending our church Easter service. After church, we (my family and also my siblings’ families) all congregate at my parent’s house. We have a huge lunch/dinner followed by a fun filled Easter egg hunt with the kids. Easter has become even more special to us. My Poppie (grandfather) passed away at age 91 on Easter Sunday morning in 2009. It was a hard day for all of us, but especially my Nana. Even though Easter Sunday is on a different day each year, we still remember him and his life on this day as we do the life or our Savior, Jesus Christ! Without Jesus, we would have no reason to celebrate Easter. Praise the Lord, He is a RISEN Savior!!!!
Growing up, my family wasn’t religious at all so we did nothing but have an Easter egg hunt.
With my children, I am raising them to love the Lord with all their heart. We have tried different things over the years but nothing really has stuck.
This book would be SO beneficial to our family.
Jesus is the reason for the season! I enjoy reading your blog. You are very insightful. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to share with us.
We started making the resurrection ‘buns’ last year when my oldest was 4, and I know that it is something we will do again and again… I love telling the story, and seeing the amazement on his face when they come out of the oven empty! I would love ot win this book and see what other ways there are to be more intentional about celebrating the life and death of Jesus!!
It is our favorite time to take a family picture. We’re all dressed for church and the flowers are blooming. We usually have a nice meal together with the grandparents, too.
I also like to display my egg wreath on the door all through Lent and Easter. We work from home and it announces subtly to our clients that come to pick up things or drop things off that we are Christian and celebrating our risen Lord.
Love the book. We try to keep the spirit of the holiday leading up to it but doing things during Lent or Advent culminating with church services with the whole family.
We go to church to celebrate Easter, but I’d like some ideas to use with my kids so they know the real reason for Easter. That’s why I’d LOVE this book 🙂
After church, my family all gets together at my dad’s house for a special lunch and Easter egg hunt for the kids!
We don’t have a particular ‘tradition’ that we’ve stuck with over the years, but our focus has always been on the celebration of what Christ did for us. We make sure that each of our four children recognizes that the reason we have a special basket on Easter morning and spend time with our extended family that day is to celebrate. One of my favorite memories is of our now 16 year old son getting his Easter basket when he was three. He ran around the house yelling, “Celebwate! Jesus is awive!! Celebwate!” before he ever even touched the first piece of candy. I knew he was ‘getting it’ and he still gets it today.
We do an Easter egg hunt, but not on Easter Sunday. We’ve pretty much disassociated the candy from the holiday, just by not putting any emphasis on it at all. If we do Easter baskets at all, they’re small, and again, it’s not on Sunday.
This book sounds perfect for this non-egg dying, craft-challenged mommy of two!
Easter is such a precious holiday. Right now we are all 4 fasting from sweet tea (our 4 year old decided on that one!) and we have been talking about Easter and Jesus and the meaning of it all! Easter Sunday, we will find the Easter story in all of our Bibles, read them, and then do some activities. (That’s the plan, anyway!) We will also do a quick egg hunt and a big lunch 🙂
Sounds like SUCH a good book. One that I need!
Blessings,
Kate 🙂
Easter is always celebrated first at church. There is nothing sweeter than gathering together as God’s family to sing His praise: “Celebrate Jesus, celebrate! He is risen! He is risen! And He lives forevermore!” At home, we don’t have much to do with the Easter bunny. Ever try to color eggs with your Alzheimama? It doesn’t work.
I love teaching the true meaning of Easter to my little 4 year old boy Caleb by using resurrection eggs that I made as a craft during one of my MOPS meetings. Would LOVE to learn about more teaching opportunities through this neat book.
We make hot cross buns every year (my husband is from New Zealand, and they’re a tradition down there), and last year I when my oldest son was 2, I added a special tradition from a book called Treasuring Christ in Our Traditions, by Noel Piper (John Piper’s wife). We made an Easter mountain out of home-made playdough baked in the oven, and used cut-out paper figures on toothpicks to act out the Easter story each day of Holy Week. (My boys are 3 and 1, so one week of Easter prep is about all they can handle so far.) My 3-yr-old absolutely loved the mountain, and loved acting out each part of the Holy Week story with the figures, especially putting Jesus in the tomb (a can baked into the mountain, covered with a real stone from outside) and seeing him up on top of the mountain ALIVE on Easter morning! He’s already asking when we can build our mountain this year. I would love this book to give me more ideas of how to make the true meaning of Easter come alive, especially as my kids get older and we go into more depth.
Easter is celebrated at church and together with family..but growing up not in a Christian home we did not have any other traditions other than chocolate and eggs so I am very interested in establishing new traditions with my family that involve the true meaning of Easter.
I’ve been looking for more than an online devo for my 4 kiddos for Easter. This looks wonderful!
I would LOVE to win a copy of this book! If I had to pick on favorite thing we do around Easter is making Easter Gardens. We put some potting soil in an egg carton and plant some wheat berries. On the inside of the egg carton lid I printed out a picture of Jesus’ tomb. The kids then found a big stone that can sit in front of the opening of the tomb. The wheat grass grows and makes a pretty garden. Then Easter morning the kids take the stone away from the opening to represent Jesus rising! Fun!
Easter tradition includes heading to church for Easter Sunday. And this year, we’re having a morning brunch before the service. No better way to celebrate Easter than with our family of believers. Excited about this book…hope I win!!!
Telling the Easter story using Ressurection Eggs, decorating eggs, and having Easter egg hunts.
We spend Easter Sunday worshipping our God with church and family time.
Sunrise service, Easter egg hunt, new bathing suits in our 3 little boys Easter baskets, fancy brunch eaten outside and our whole family together. I would love this book! Our family needs this! So many of our families! Wonderful topic!
As I am a newlywed, and new step-mom to 3 teenage boys, this will be the Easter for new traditions. We may do sunrise breakfast at church, we may do eggs & resurrection buns, we may do lots of things. I just know I am excited for new beginnings and a chance to experience the glory of Easter morning with my new family!
I think the best way to spend easter is Sunrise service, Church ,and time with family.
Easter egg hunts are always fun for the little ones and we always have a money egg for each kid to find special with their name on it!
I am so greatful to have a book published like this. I am a soon to be homeschooling mom of 3. I am starting to build my library and this year I was focusing on filling it with kids books focused on the holidays. In doing this it was brought to my attention how much focus is put on presents, candy, and imaginary beings for the holidays. Don’t get me wrong I love the bunny and the leprechauns also, but we should not base holidays on those items alone. We need to bring the focus back to the true meaning of Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick’s Day and so forth. Let our children and famliy identify these holidays with the Lord and his message through them rather than the next cool thing they “have” to have.
We go to church, have an egg hunt and relax.
Easter story using the ressurection eggs, worship as an extended family, and a meal that includes ham, cheesy potatoes, and Jello jiggler eggs. As a child we also had extended family, a hunt for onion skin dyed eggs, and a new white shirt or blouse.
We have started doing a Sedar. We like how it incorporates the Old Testament and has a family involvment element to dinner rather just dinner and small talk with the extended family. We are always looking for more ways to bring Christ in and leave the world at our doorstep.
we go to church and have a huge dinner with family and friends. We also have our “Resurrection Eggs” to help tell the story of Jesus death and victory over death and sin!
We always participate in the Tridium: a collection of three services starting Wed. of Holy week and going through the Easter vigil service. They walk you through the Passion in a meaningful and reflective way to the joy of the resurrection shared with new members at the Easter vigil.
Our family sings in a mass Easter choir consisting of a number of churches. The whole family sings including the littlest member (he started with us at 1 year and has is now 4). It is an incredible time – the rise of so many voices to bless our Saviour is beautifully overwhelming and it has become my favourite time of year.
We did an Easter tree with an old branch and hung eggs on it…it’s on the table and every time we eat we say…just like chicks…”jesus gives us new life!”
This year will be the first time we’ve really brought God to the forefront at Easter. We’re planning to talk about the REAL Easter story, and make sure our kids understand that it isn’t about bunnies and jellybeans.
We love to use the Resurrection eggs from Family Life. Our kids love the hands on examples and illustrations from the Easter story.
Here’s the link …
http://www.christianbook.com/resurrection-eggs-updated-edition/9781602003927/pd/003927?kw=resurrection%20eggs&event=PPCSRC&p=1018818&cm_mmc=Google-_-Seasonal-_-easter-eggs-_-resurrection%20eggs&gclid=CNvFjfH9gqgCFQpm7AodQHmQtA
I love our church service that day, where every member of the congregation is given a flower to place within a cross.
this would be wonderful! I have often tried to take my “teacher hat” home for a way to get my kids involved in learning about EAster, we even made a 30 day countdown, but it feels stifeld and old and they really just want to know about candy still. Please help me! The best thing I can think of that we do right now is RESURRECTION EGGS and we also hatch catepillars into butterflies at this time of year. At least we are trying to witness the miracle of new life, but not sure if they are connecting that to Christ yet=)
My family greats each other and friends and family at church with “He is Risen!” “He is risen indeed!”
The resurrection cookies we made last year seemed so significant and meaningful–new tradition for sure!!
would love to read this book! now that my kids are reaching school-age, I’m searching for Jesus ideas for the holidays and seasons. the Res. Eggs have been a hit for the past few years.
My favorite Easter tradition is celebrating Jesus resurrection with my family at church and then having a lovely, delicious homecooked meal together! 🙂
Getting together with friends and family and rejoicing with everyone is always a great tradition!
In the past we have made resurrection cookies (the kind that sit in the oven overnight & then are “empty” inside each cookie in the morning). My kids also like hunting homemade Resurrection Eggs which have an Easter symbol inside.
Love to spend the day with a sunrise service followed by a wonderful lunch with my family.
wow this book looks awesome! I love to make a big deal out of any and every holiday with my family so this would be fantastic!
kathy k.
My kids are 3 & 5 and they really enjoy the Resurrection Eggs each year.
I love Easter! We attend mass in the early am then off to start the feast with breakfast with all the family followed by a larger feast from mid afternoon meal. Downing time with relatives and maybe a movie on the evening.
Every year my kids look forward to decorating eggs and putting out their Easter baskets and doing the egg hunts after church on Easter. I’d LOVE to have some inspiration on incorporating more Truth into the holidays. Not just for my kids, but for their kids and future generations.
Thanks for the opportunity!
We always get up sooooo early and go to sunrise service in the mountains. The view from up there is breathtaking as it is, and to see it at sunrise is worth the early alarm clock.
We celebrate Easter by going to my parents’ or sibling’s home and enjoying a meal and conversation together. We also have a tradition of decorating/coloring eggs.
I would just love this book! my favorite things to do on Easter with my family is attend a church service, it’s such a special, meaningful way for us to celebrate together. Of course, easter egg hunts are a wonderful tradition we share.
We go to the Easter service then have a huge feast together with family.
Because we have church service the night before (our normal time is Saturday nights), I am able to fully give myself to the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection and worship Him for all He’s done for me. On Sunday, in addition to our 7 children, we usually have extended family and friends over. It is a time to enjoy the blessings God has given us.
I was looking around for some ideas just this morning before I received this in my inbox. I hope I win a copy and can pass it on to others after we do it as a family! Thank you for the giveaway!!
Well, we don’t have our traditions worked out yet, since our kids are still pretty young and death & dying is intertwined with the Good News of the resurrection. BUT when we were children, it was all about friends & family & celebrating, and there was always an Easter egg hunt.
We use the Resurrection Eggs for our devotion time leading up to Easter. Even though my oldest girls are teenagers now, they still love opening up those plastic eggs to see what piece of the Easter story is hiding inside. I can remember watching those eager faces opening those eggs for the first time, the look on their faces as we talked about the crown of thorns, the whip, the dice, and all the others. When I see them now, I know their faith has grown, I know their understanding of the cost of the Easter story has grown just as they’ve grown; but somehow, when I watch them open an egg, I still see the wonder of those eyes as preschoolers.
We’re just getting started with developing holiday traditions – our daughter is only two. I’m finding it is sometimes difficult to make sure the focus is truly what the focus needs to be.
Decorating,making easter cookies, homemade choc. eggs,coloring eggs. Sunrise Service, Easter Breakfast, Worship Service, Easter meal at 1:00 at our home with relatives, Easter Egg Hunts. Many Easter Blessings/Memories….my favorite: Maundy Thursday Service, Communion and Footwashing. The ladies and men would be separated in different rooms and we would go around in a circle one-at-a-time and wash each others feet like Christ did to his disciples. Each lady would choose one different person from the group and say something special about them until everyone had their feet washed. It was so spirtual/singing hymns and praying/very humble experience. Our 2 yr. old daughter went over to her 90 yr. old great-grandma, and said how much she loved her and started washing her feet…basin, pitcher of water, and towel. We sang Jesus Loves Me. Such an awesome memory that brought tears to everyone. I will never forget! I was 8-1/2 months pregnant and right at that moment the movement/activity in my womb was clearly letting me know our 2nd daughter at the time was feeling the joy as well. What an awesome God we Serve!
We have kids ages 9,6 and 4. A couple of years ago we decided the Easter gifts would be early in the season. Not Easter morning. So they now have a ‘spring’ gift and Easter is about Jesus. We’ve done hot cross buns too. I also grew up watching the Jesus of Nazareth movie each Easter week. We started repeating that tradition last year with our then 8 & 5 year old. There’s something about watching the movie that spoke to my heart so strongly as a five year old. I fell in love with the story of Jesus that way because I’m a visual learner. I wanted to do the same for my kids. I would love this book for more ideas! Thanks so much for the opportunity!
I love going to Easter service and singing with great joy of the resurrection – my kids knew exactly why we celebrated from an early age – and it wasn’t about bunnies and chicks. 🙂
there is always a way to put Christ into our holidays – even the 4th of july! when my sons were growing up and at home we always were able to let them see how Christ is in all of our holidays. thank you for the chance to win one of these books.
I’m one of those moms that LOVES holidays and making room for Jesus in ANY celebration. But now and then my kids who range in age from 2-12 just want me to dump all the creativity and do something SIMPLE 🙂 (12 year old boys aren’t that impressed by holiday crafts anymore!). So here’s my favorite SIMPLE -anyone- can -do- it Easter favorite. The centerpiece on our Easter table is a large clump of helium filled balloons. Each color is used to tell the story of Jesus from the creation of the world to the resurrection. Green for creation- Jesus was the beginning and He’ll be the end, yellow for the treasure in a manger sent from God, Purple for His royal identity, Red for His blood on Calvary- black for Good Friday and the cross– white for the victory over death and the forgiveness He offers– you get the idea. After we tell the story at Easter dinner, we take the balloons outside and let each child re-tell the story by letting go of the appropriate color. We watch the balloon sail away and cheer when the white one finally leaves and reminds us that we, too, will rise again and reside in Heaven one day, all because of the empty tomb 🙂
One of my favorite way, growing up, was to have an Easter egg hunt. My parents would hide all the eggs and then my brother and I would fine them. We would also go to both sets of grandparents house, which we still enjoy doing today! I also enjoyed the sunrise service at church. Just seeing the sunrise over the horizon while we were singing praises to Jesus is a great memory!
Very simply, we enjoy reading the scripture account of the resurrection of our beautiful Lord! We talk about the hope we have because of what God did for us in Jesus! We enjoy the angel who we imagine as bigger than life!
I have fond memories of coloring Easter eggs every eyar with my grandmother as a little girl. I’m excited to find ways to incorporate the real meaning of Easter into my future family!
I would love this book. We’ve been talking a lot about how to make Easter about Jesus and not about bunnies and eggs.
I am a mom with a 2 yr old and another one on the way, so teaching Easter has not been an issue in our home until this year, but I have worked in childrens ministry at church for many years and we always used the 12 eggs of easter that you open with reminders in each one what Easter is really about. Thank you for a chance to win some new ideas!!
In a world where our kids & ourselves are inundated with ‘buy more, get bigger, must have’ messages, my husband and I are always on the lookout for new and exciting ways that we can implement in our family to keep our focus where it needs to be. On God.
Thanks for the entry, this sounds like a lovely book.
One of my most favorite memories is getting our family picture taken on Easter morning before church. I grew up in the South and the azaleas are usually in full bloom providing a beautiful background. My great aunts were always so proud to see my brothers and me all dressed up for church, especially since my brothers were not excited about wearing ties and coats on a regular basis.
For the past few years the only eggs we hide are the resurection eggs.. I take all three kiddos and take turns asking them to go and find a certain color egg and when they open their egg we discuss the what they found in the egg and how it pertains to Jesus…. They love doing this so much they beg to hide the eggs again and retell the story. I grew up with the whole easter bunny thing but my most precious gift as a child was getting a Jesus themed puzzle on my pillow one Easter… You can not imagine the joy that over took my adult heart the day when cleaning out my grandma’s house as she was moving that I came across this puzzle! So I know these are memories that my babies (lol ok my oldest will be turning 11 this Easter week) will hold on to. This is the first year we will actually have family down around Easter my nephew being two (turning three that week as well) I would love this book to give more ideas (more Christ centered ideas for all holidays even!) Thank you for this oportunity!
Each year we make empty tomb cookies. Each ingredient connects to the crusifiction of Christ and helps to tell the story to young children in a way that they can start to understand. We also go to our Easter service at church and spend time with family.
We love to celebrate Easter (and other holidays) focused on reading related Scripture – where the truth lives!
This book sounds fantastic. Thank you for this opportunity!
This year, we’re making Resurrection Rolls and making it an annual tradition!
I am trying hard to find ways to honor God in the holidays for my grandchildren because, sadly, I did not do this for my daughters (30 and 31). My grandchildren love the Lord and this book would definitely be the key to helping them see Him in all the holidays.
I would love to get this book to try some of these ideas with my kids!
I love Easter. We don’t always do the same thing, and I love new ideas. Dyeing eggs with our kids is one that I can think of right now. Lasst year we put the boiled egg inside a little whisk so even my 2 year old could dip is egg without dropping it. We usually go to egg hunts, but we haven’t really promoted the Easter bunny. We’ve tried to make sure our kids understand that Easter is about Jesus’ death and resurrection.
favorite tradition? racing around my grandparents’ backyard, collecting eggs, then finding the one L’eegs egg (that used to be the only way yo get big eggs) that had our name written on it in Grandma’s beautiful writing
we celebrate with a huge extended family dinner and story catchup!
then everyone {adults too!} hunts for their chocolate surprise cleverly hidden SOMEWHERE in the living room! always a blast! and a longtime tradition with many great memories….
thx for asking 🙂 !
I have to say that the egg hunt is always a blast, but this year we ordered the resurrection eggs to start a new tradition with my little ones. I would love to win this book for more ideas!
Our favorite way to celebrate Easter is by going to Good Friday services and attending worship service on Resurrection morning.
My kids are still quite young, but we love Easter themed books and crafts. I would really love this giveaway. Thanks!
This looks like a great book!
Years ago there was a church that put on a live depicition of the events from good Friday at dusk, until Jesus emerged from the tomb at sunrise on Sunday morning. The entire event took place outside as if it were all real! It was magnificent and I wept every year. There were guards at the tomb round the clock! Imagine sneaking your kids out past their bedtime to go see the stonefaced guards, and ‘Mary’ on her knees weeping by Jesus’ tomb! Not an Easter Bunny in sight. Mine were beside themselves. One year, it was cold and rainy all night on Saturday and early into Sunday morning and I questioned whether or not to go. When the Lord woke me up at 4 am I took that as His prompting! I woke the kids up, got bundled and into the car and drove half asleep to the church wondering if I was crazy, questioning my mothering & judgement the entire cold and rainy ride. We arrived Just as the Angel was rolling away the stone and Jesus was victoriously leaving the tomb, as if on cue-the rain subsided and the sun broke through the clouds and shone it’s warm glow on us all! AWESOME. My kids will never forget that! Nor will I. That church hasn’t done that same event in years. That was by far, my favorite Easter, EVER.
We attend church services in the morning and then have a big family meal later in the day. The kids love dying and hunting for eggs! I would love to get this book and start some new traditions.
Worshipping with family and friends is our favorite way to celebrate Easter
We are starting a new tradition this year. We will limit the Christmas gifts to just 3 for our daughter. Why only 3? To symbolize the 3 gifts the wise men gave baby Jesus. We feel like this will help us keep the Christ in Christmas with rememberance and thanksgiving being formost in our thoughts. The grandparents are free to do as they wish…
Would love some other ideas on how to manage and maneuver through all the holiday commercialism!
My husband and I were just talking about this. How we want to make sure that our daughters truly understand the meaning of the Holidays and why we celebrate. This book would be such a blessing to our family!
We celebrate Easter with family and worship service. This year we won’t be with our extended family, but will spend time volunteering at our church, worshiping, and celebrating together.
I struggle, too. Yet, I do *it* anyway…pushing through and trying to make resurrection cookies, coloring eggs and talking about new life, searching for eggs and how God searches for us and how He exclaims with delight when He’s found us. We do it anyway, with heavy hearts laden with prayers that my little guy will *see* Him.
Growing up, Easter for our family was always, first and foremost, about going to church – we did get Easter baskets and have Easter egg hunts but my parents made sure that didn’t overshadow the true meaning of Easter. It is the same for my family now. On Easter Sunday, we go to church and then continue the day celebrating time with our loved ones, having Easter egg hunts with our daughter and just enjoying “family.” I would love to have this book to learn new and creative ways to not only instill the true meaning of the holidays in my daughter but to keep us, her parents, reminded as well.
We have a huge family dinner after church. When I was growing up, we would attend a Sunrise Service at church, and I loved it because it made me think of when Mary went to Jesus’ tomb, and found it empty.
We do the egg hunt and baskets, but I don’t include chocolate bunnies. I try to find things like Veggie Tales movies or the animated Jesus movies at the Bible Book Store. That’s not to say there’s not other stuff… the dollar bin at Target provides coloring books or other stuff, but I do try to make the holiday about Jesus dying on the cross & His empty tomb 3 days later.
This year, we’ll be making an Easter tree with crosses and eggs. As well as doing the resurrection eggs. Praying for wise words to share the story of Jesus’ resurrection with my small one… 🙂
We celebrate a Passover meal and try to explain it all to the kids in ways they can understand. We make Resurrection Cookies and of course, enjoy numerous egg hunts at home and in the communtiy. This book sounds wonderful.
Hi: Love the opportunity to incorporate some new Christ-centered traditions into our family. As a mother of two small boys and being married to an unbeliever, I’m always looking for new opportunities to instill Jesus-centered values into our boys’ lives, without being offensive to my husband. Thanks for the opportunity to win a free book! 🙂
We have always decorated eggs the day before Easter, had Easter Baskets waiting for the kids on Easter morning, and some sort of special dinner – usually with at least 1 or 2 extra family members, but the in between has been random. One year, we had an Easter Egg hunt w/ some friends who put extra “surprises” in the eggs for their nephew and my oldest son. Some of the “surprises” were twigs, worms, and even a live lizard. (It was still alive when found and only slightly shaken up.) This year, we decided to try to do more to teach the real reason why we celebrate Easter. We gave up meat for Lent and have been reading scripture together as a family. We are planning on gathering twigs today for an easter tree and going through Ann Voskamps free Easter Devotional download. I love the idea of this book b/c we are constantly fighting the uphill battle against our society to make the holidays more Holy. Awesome idea!
My husband and I have been discussing this topic off and on since Christmas. It’s hard in this society of commericalism and paganism to direct the focus of the holidays toward their true meaning and way from the distorted meanings that the marketing around us wants to promote.
Thanks for the great giveaway.
I love ideas that help our children to be creatively reminded of the meaning of the holiday rather than distracting from the meaning. We’ve made a resurrection tomb with play dough in the past, made hot cross buns on Good Friday and we’ve also had hunts for different objects in the story of Jesus’ Resurrection that help tell the story.
for easter we go to church as a family, celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and singing Alleluias, and then come back home and celebrate with a feast of homemade goodies, with loved ones surrounding a table, sharing life and loving one another.
Since we’ve almost always lived away from family, we’ve always enjoyed getting together with friends for an Easter feast. We also always talk about Jesus death and resurrection with our kids.
We generally attend Sunrise celebration with other missionaries. As it is close to a 1 hour drive we have time to talk about the day and memories. No candy but we try to have a special meal. Here some non-believers celebrate Good Friday–that evil won. That Christ is dead and therefore does not have power. With the Voodoo drums reminding us of the dark side remembering that HE’s ALIVE becomes very special.
We love doing the resurrection eggs!! It helps them to realize the real meaning behind Easter!!
This is wonderful! I am always looking for ways to help keep the focus on Christ during Easter. My favorite Easter memory from my childhood was walking up early and going to my Grandmother’s grave at dawn. my family would take crackers and juice and hold our own communion each Easter in the graveyard. We sang “Up from the grave He arose” and worshiped the Lord together. I used to hate getting up so early, but now I miss those days.
We are actually starting many of our traditions this year. 🙂 We just had our daughter and it really made my husband and I step back and think about what we want to share/pass on/teach our little girl. So, this year we are doing an Easter devotional. As she gets older, I’d love to do more, but like you…I am not the greatest at coming up with ideas! This book would really help me and my new little family as we grow and start making our own traditions!
Thank you for doing the give-a-way! 🙂
For Easter we like to do an Easter Egg hunt but with Christian eggs that contain Christian items and Scriptures in them.
The highlight of the season is the church service where we celebrate the ENTIRE point of our faith. I take my girls shopping for new dresses, which makes them feel special. We also spend time with family eating too much delicious food, but all the while celebrating Jesus. Since my kids are little I would love some more hands on ideas to teach about Easter. This book looks great.
I try each year to find something new(and often crafty) That will increase my grandchildren’s God knowledge, especially on Easter and Christmas. Their parents have wandered away from the Lord, but their children are like sponges and very open to any God teaching I do..so I do in any creative way I can find! I love new ideas and the grandkids can’t wait to see what their “crafty” grandma can come up with. So this book could be a great addition to my resources.
I heard the authors interviewed on Moody radio sounds like and excellent tool for Christian parents and their children. We are always looking for ways to make the holidays more about Him and less about us. This year we will be making resurrection cookies for Easter.
We meet up at church for Easter service then gather for a wonderful meal. In recent years, we’ve used the Resurrection Eggs to walk through the season with our4 kids (ages 9-1). This year we also copied a “map” of the Lenten Calendar to help them visualize the countdown to Easter Sunday.
My kids love the resurrection eggs. Last year, my mom bought us the story of Benjamin’s Box that my oldest loves to read to her sisters now as well. My mom even has a toy resurrection set for the kids to play with. Since the kids love the nativity set at Christmas, the resurrection set is the perfect match for Easter!
We get together as a family and we read the Easter story from the Bible together.
We usually make Resurrection Biscuits or Resurrection Cookies. WE also use Resurrection Eggs to tell the story of Easter. We also have a board book that talks about all the commercial and common Easter symbols and how we can see Jesus even in those.
We love dying Easter eggs as a family.
A few years ago the kids and I made a fantastic large tissue paper cross on the window. I’d like to turn it into a tradition.
And I’d like to start Resurrection Eggs this year.
We’ve always have church & a traditional family dinner. I love the Resurrection Eggs for our grandchildren.
We make the Resurrection cookies and we also love Maundy Thursday services. This particular service sets the mood and meaning for the Easter holiday. Taking communion/Lord’s supper on Maundy Thursday and remembering the sacrifice of Christ’s death for us makes the rejoicing on Sunday morning that much more meaningful.
This year we are beginning a new tradition. We recently moved out with our church to a church plant in rural northern Colorado, and will be enjoying a sunrise service with our new church family out on the Colorado plains. God is at work in our community and we are so blessed to be a part of it all!
Because we live in rainy-ish Seattle our Easter egg hunt is indoors using the little foil-wrapped chocolate Easter eggs. We hide some in each of the children’s rooms (how inspired they are to clean up their room!) and then in the public areas of the house each person assigned a certain color. Parents hide eggs for the kids and kids hide them for the parents. Sometimes we don’t find some eggs for years, or until we move! Nothing faith based in that little tradition except family fun. Thanks for book introduction!
Like so many others, we’ve done the resurrection cookies, eggs and buns. I am wanting to take the candy completely out of the picture, but those Grandmas… 🙂 I have mixed feelings about coloring eggs and they do that with Grandpa. I do a lot of trusting that what we teach all year round–what we live–will be the biggest Jesus impact.
Thanks for offering this chance to win this helpful book!
We have a 2 year old daughter and every year I, the momma, prepare baskets for her and my husband. I try and tuck in small , meaningful gifts, books and of course some kind of sugary something. On easter morning they wake to recieve their baskets – I love the anticipation even coming from my hubby.
I also bake “Easter Pecan Bread” with a cross braided on each one. A precious way we can sit down, remember Christ, and enjoy celebrating together.
I’ve heard great things about this book. We LOVE the resurrection eggs. We actually keep them out year round.
The resurrection buns are our favorite, but my boys (12 and 14) still love decorating eggs too. Looks like a wonderful book…I could use some new ideas!
I thoroughly enjoy making Ressurection Buns with our family, and reading “The Best Thing About Easter Is…” which is a kids picture book that talks about the different nice and fun aspects associated with Easter like eggs and bunnies, but that the BEST part is that Jesus is alive!!
Last year we did the Resurrection eggs in addition to our usual egg dyeing and hiding. I’ll be reading all the comments here and crossing my fingers that I win a book to get some new ideas. Thanks!
We moved to Colorado a little over 5 years ago to be a part of a new church plant my brother started. Every year we have a potluck w/the entire church family at our house right after the morning service. It is such a sweet, fun time of fellowship, rejoicing, and sharing the blessings God has given us. Some years it is warm and sunny and we can be outside, others it has been snowing and 40+ are packed in the house, but it is always a wonderful day.
I am craving something like this for our family!
We’ve found observing Lent to be very helpful in preparing ourselves for a spiritual celebration of Easter.
Yeah, the chocolate is good. But we fill up the week (and Lent) with activity and art.
Passover: a meal and a history lesson and Jesus in action
Maundy Thursday: a church celebration that makes us think about the priesthood of all believers (washing each others’ feet)
Good Friday service: when the church is stripped of decoration and we leave hushed
Easter Vigil on Saturday night: the COOLEST service starts with candle light outdoors, moves to a place for reading scriptures of creation, fall, flood, fire, dry bones, spirit wind and then to a baptism (if we’re lucky enough to have someone to baptize, otherwise we remember our baptism) and into the church (it should be midnight by then but isn’t) for a glorious “he is risen” service
Sunrise service on the beach, a longstanding tradition of our church, next to a campus so sometimes students and strangers attend: it’s cold and the music is corny but the coffee is hot and the breakfast treats are aplenty.
Easter morning dress up service after which there is a chocolate egg hunt!
At home, art decorates the walls, a really fake tree has eggs all over it, and this year we have a Lenten wreath made by Caleb Voskamp with candles (I need to buy more) and a devotional by Walter Wangerin and a strung purple cord that took the place of the red one at Valentines for hanging ornaments we dream up having to do with Lent (on St Patrick’s day I made a cross with shamrock out of perler beads, for instance).
Wishing that I had some easter traditions that are more meaningful. Of course we go to church and spend time with family on Easter, but finding a way to make it click with the kiddos in a real tangible way…I’m still searching. (Enjoying perusing the comments to see what others do)
This looks like a great book, I’ve been scouring the internet looking for ideas to do just that. Would love to have all the ideas in one place!
I think my favorite Easter tradition is so like our Christmas one, we all and I mean all, get together as a family to celebrate. Aunts, Uncles,Grandparents, cousins, friends even. We share a fun time doing egg hunts and noshing on candy. We come together to share a meal and pray together. Then the magic happens…everyone begins to share reasons why they are thankful, for a person, our family, God…nothing and no one gets left out. This all happens again at Christmas…truly my most favorite part of any holiday.
Starting a new tradition of making Resurrection cookies this year! I’m pretty excited about it!
Hi! I had no idea a book like this, that included all holidays, existed! I would love a copy! We love our resurrection eggs and interactive manger, but other ideas would be so appreciated! Hope to win! Johnna
Oh to separate ourselves from the world. What a great resource to treasure. Thank you for being so kind t share.
We love the book Benjamin’s Box! It has helped our kids really understand Easter’s significance.
My wife would love this as a gift for our homeschool curriculum! We journey to the cross through Lent and a repentance box.
Still trying to figure out ways to bring a bigger focus to God and what He has done for us in these holidays!
Easter has always been special to our family , and ever since I finished Ann Voscamps
beautiful book ,”A Thousand Gifts “,it’s even more special to me. I want so much to help my children see past the Easter baskets, to the incredible gift Jesus gave us,on Calvary . And the moment by moment gifts He continues to give us each day .
We try to make at least one food together each year that has Easter significance, such as Hot Cross buns or the ones with marshmallows in the middle that disappear.
Wow, what a great book, now that our little one is getting to the age she can understand what’s going on at the holidays I want to make sure she knows the real meaning and purpose of the holidays, I’m happy to still let her hunt for eggs, see Santa, etc…but teaching her that is not what we are celebrating in our family.
We usually use books and talk about it in conversation..that’s what we did for Eatser and Christmas last year.
Ours just turned two so we are trying to make sure she knows something else, even if she doesn’t completely grasp it yet. Love the Easter book we have: “My Easter Basket” which is glittery and a stacking, cut-out (cardboard, big size) book that goes through all the colors in the Easter basket (which has bunnies, lambs, eggs, flowers) saying what they mean (rhyming, of course) about Jesus’ last week (Palm Sunday – green (palms); Last Supper – purple (wine)…etc).
Wow that is so exciting! I’m a nanny and I’m always trying to find meaningful ways to teach the young kids about Christ. I’m also now CE Director at our church. This would be a fantastic resource. I might just have to get it!
My husband and I got married last May so we don’t have an Easter tradition yet. We are starting this year by making Easter the holiday we spend as a family, in our home (whereever that may be). I’m so excited to actually celebrate Easter as a believer with my home church. Before I was married I always spent Easter with my family but they are unbelievers so that was always very hard on me. I’m so excited to spend the day rejoicing about our Savior with my husband!
We enjoy the plastic Resurrection Eggs with little things in them that walk you thru the Easter story.
Our family reads from the Bible and has a quiet Lord’s day.
All is grace,
April
Last year we started the resurrection eggs with our kids and they LOVED it!
Oh, how it would be awesome to win this book! It is sometimes a strugle to come up with ideas on how to not commercialize special holidays and teach the true meaning of them to your children. Thanks for the opportunity and always being such an incouragement!
Blessings!
Growing up my family’s Easter tradition was coloring eggs and having a hunt. However, other than going to church on Easter morning, nothing else we did seemed to celebrate the true reason for this holiday. 🙁 Now that I’m older and have my own family (our first child was born last June), my husband and I really want to start our own family traditions — ones that speak truth and help keep our focus where it should be.
we always try to keep the focus on Jesus, but last year we tried a passover seder, and it was sooo meaningful we would like to do it again this year.
We celebrate Easter morning at church and then with an Easter egg hunt at Grandma’s. I’d love to know more about the Resurrection egg idea.
I would LOVE to get this book! We have 2 little boys and have been struggling with this very issue. We’ve been trying to think of creative ways to teach & celebrate Easter with our 3 & 1 year old. Thank you for the chance to win this book!
I love that idea! It is frustratingly hard to bring back the true meaning of our special holidays!
One of the many traditions we had, was the making and eating of the hotcross buns.
The cross always came with the resurrection story. We had a book of CS Lewis excerpts that showed how to celebrate Easter as well.
We have baskets and egg hunts but I’ve always tried to keep the celebration Christ focused. We talk a lot about why we celebrate Easter.
We are just now starting our own Easter traditions! This book would be a must read for our family! We love dressing up and going to church. Then we get together for a big family get-together with food, Easter egg hunts and lots of pictures. I always love hearing what my children learn from Sunday school too!
We make cinnamon rolls for Easter morning. We put them together on Saturday, cover them and wake to see how they’ve risen on Easter morning. A small analogy of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.
This sounds great! Every Easter that I can remember, my mom has fixed Easter baskets for each of us (my sister, my brother, and myself). Now, we are all grown. My sister is married and expecting the first grandchild of our family; I’m in college; and my brother is finishing his last year of high school. Although we are grown and become adults ourselves, our parents always take the time to remind us of their love for us and to remind us of the Ultimate Love. Thanks for this opportunity and for another reminder!
We always get together with family after we all go together to one of the services at church. Last year, we helped at a park where they were trying to start a new church plant. It was great, & we all wore jeans on Easter Sunday instead of all the frilly stuff!!
We enjoy having a family dinner with just our immediate family, but we always invite others who don’t have anyone to share the day with. This year I am hoping to make resurrection cookies with my kids for the first time. I would love to read this book and hear what ideas they have!!
Oh, I am so not one of those creative moms either. I have really shared this frustration with my husband over this past Christmas and upcoming Easter season. I find our daughter looking forward to the holidays for the food, candy, and gifts. It is not about any of those things and I would love help in sharing the messages with her. Such a great book idea.
At the beginning of Lent, I make Lenten Gardens. Three small handmade crosses placed in moss with some pretty rocks and a lamb off to the side. This focal point makes it easier for us to focus our attention on Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross.
Easter is such a special day! We wake up to beautiful Easter baskets, hidden eggs, church celebration, brunch, dinner … I love the beautiful dresses and spring! We usually watch the 10 Commandments movie that week. I would love some fun ways to share the real meaning behind the holiday … new traditions that would really bring Christ alive for us during this Resurrection Day! Thanks for the opportunity!
We always did the Easter egg and Easter basket tradition growing up, and I have fond memories of that, but I would love help with putting Christ back at the center with our kids (when we have them). I don’t necessarily have anything against the Easter bunny, but it does make me sad that it has replaced Christ in so many ways.
At Christmas we always have a birthday cake and sing happy birthday to Jesus. For Easter we like to gather with family and we always read the story of the resurrection, and thank Him for everything He went through for us:)
Would love the oppurtunity to win a book like this!
We made a paper mache ‘tomb’ and reinacted Jesus coming out alive! Also, we plant things to remember New Life, read stories, etc. I would love the further ideas!
My children are now grown but I have grandchildren and this would be a great gift for their family. Our Easter traditions in the past have largely been based upon church, dinner and family time. Of course the expected “egg hunt” has always played a part but I really like the idea of putting more emphasis on God when celebrating all our holidays. What a great idea for a book!
My son likes to hear the Easter story, and he asks for it over and over and over again! I have a lesson plan that I wrote years ago using an 8 egg version of the Resurrection Eggs. He loves to go through the story with those eggs and it never gets old to him. I think it is wonderful that he wants to hear the story over and over!
We read our picture bible and then host an easter brunch for the entire extended family.
The way it goes is this:
Dye the eggs on Friday night.
Hunt the eggs on Saturday morning.
Eat the eggs (“deviled”, though that sounds very un-Eastery) for lunch on Sunday.
It’s tradition!
As a child, my favorite Easter tradition was my new dress, which had oftentimes been sewn by my grandma. I am now a very new mom (my little girl is two months old) and I find myself very much looking forward to Easter this year. I am excited to start traditions with my growing family and I am not at all opposed to the most common ones. I earnestly shopped for my baby’s first Easter dress. I have already started enjoying Easter candy. I know for a fact that my daughter has five Easter baskets coming her way. I am sure we will attend at least one Easter egg hunt and we certainly will be coloring some in our home. However, while I do want my baby to enjoy these traditions as she grows up, I also want to raise a child who not only understands the true meaning of the holidays but also values that meaning even more than the food and gifts often associated with them. I am thrilled to have stumbled across this post today because I now plan to read this book to help me in my quest to raise a Godly daughter. Thank you!
We get together with friends and family, read the Bible, talk about meaning of Easter and enjoy each other’s company.
Oh this would be great! I have been really contemplating how to make our holidays more focused on God and could use the ideas! :o) Thanks for sharing.
I’m always attempting to make religious holidays meaningful by creating family traditions at home. We regularly attend our church services, but even more reinforcememt on the homefront is great! Would love more ideas!
Easter is always a special time of year to me and our family. We attend church together and celebrate the life and joy of our risen Savior! Then we always spend the day with the entire family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins and all.
we love to celebrate every holdiay for its tru meaning, and have never gotten into the “fad buying” or easter bunny/santa clause type things.
We worship together and participate in our church’s festivities, then we spend the day with family. I would LOVE some great ideas for Easter. We have GREAT Christmas traditions but not Easter ones.
We’ve enjoyed serving the Easter Breakfast at our church for many of the past 17 years. My favorite thing to make is my cross sour cream coffee cake!
We celebrate over an agape meal with our church family.
EVERY YEAR I think about how to make Easter more meaningful, and it ends up being too much work to think things up. I’d love one of these books.
Sometimes I really struggle with how to keep Christ at the center of holidays. It’s just so easy to get caught up in the other stuff. But one thing I love about Easter is attending a sunrise service. It reminds me to stop at the very beginning of my day and remember–He is risen! Doing that before anything else helps me keep my focus where it should be.
This year I’m expecting my first baby due Good Friday, and I’ve been pondering lately how I’ll one day teach my children that Easter isn’t really about bunnies and eggs filled with candy (although there will certainly be plenty of eggs filled with candy!). This book sounds great!
Easter for my family has always just been a time to spend time together as a family, and I look forward to including my children in the celebration.
We’re just beginning our family and haven’t really implemented our own traditions yet… (neither my husband nor I were raised in Christian homes) we’re hoping to use Ann Voskamps Easter Devotional in the future. We’d also like to try incorporating some sort of Passover celebration. Would LOVE this resource to give us some more ideas!
We color Easter Eggs and have lots of fun going on an Easter Egg hunt. I think that my kids enjoy coloring and decorating them more than the hunt itself. It is a simple but fun tradition we enjoy each year.
We have an Easter egg hunt each year. But, we leave some of the eggs empty to remind our children of the empty tomb that was found Easter morning.
My favorite way is to put Bible questions in plastic eggs. If the kids answer them correctly they earn a sweet!
We put up a wooden cross in our front yard, draped in purple. On Friday, we drape it in black. On Sunday morning, early Easter mornng, we drape it in white.
I love attending ALL the worship services during Holy week. Palm Sunday Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and finally triumphantly Easter. Then we come home, have a good old fashioned egg hunt and top it off with our traditional meal: Easter egg salad on toast. Of course, chocolate and jelly beans for dessert!
My family goes to church and then meets at my parent’s home for lunch. All of our “extended” family (family members that only see each other 2 times per year) also comes. The cousins love to get together and play for hours. The adults love to sit, relax, and catch up with each other. My kids know why we celebrate Easter, but I would love to have new ideas and ways to share Christ’s Resurrection with them.
We love attending an Easter vigil service on Saturday.
We do sgtart the day with Easter baskets (one each) for my two children and one for Mom and Dad to share. We have used the same baskets every year since they were born. While Easter candy and treats are included, there is always some Christian gift or several. We always go to church and have an Easter meal with family after which we hunt eggs. We attend a Maundy Thursday service as well. We would be so blessed to have this book to begin a new tradition in our family.
We have an Easter breakfast, taking time for relationship. (Breakfast is usually grabbed out the door, or skipped. Esp. on Sundays) My husband and I also watch The Passion movie to remind us of His sacrifice.
We try to make it over to my hometown . The church I attended while I was growing up always does a Passion Play. It is so moving and really gets to the heart of Resurrection Sunday! Last year, my oldest was 3 1/2. He was spellbound throughout the entire performance. It brought tears to my eyes!
Lots things we do, (you can read about two of them here: http://www.katieorrblog.com/2011/03/two-fun-ways-to-make-easter-all-about.html) but one of my kids’ favorites is getting to wear our “He is Risen” pins on Easter morning. I love how proud they are to wear them!
Last year we discovered resurrection rolls through a blog and we really liked using it to help our tot visualize what took place so many years ago. We are definitely keeping it as part of our Easter traditions.
Wow! Great opportunity!
My son is 8-months old, so we’ve recently started thinking about being intentional with how we celebrate holidays with him. This year for Easter, he’ll be dressed up in a seersucker suit to match his dad’s, and his Easter basket will have a stuffed lamb and a book about why we celebrate Easter (He is risen!). I look forward to creating new traditions as he gets older!
I would love to win one of these! We like to do sunrise service and then a nice breakfast afterwards. I love Easter!
Now that my oldest is 2 we are really trying to evaluate what traditions will point us to Christ and which ones are just fluff or even detrimental to his spiritual growth. I would love to win a copy!
We get together with family and friends and have a huge egg hunt after church.
Our Easter celebration is all about joy following the austerity of Lent and especially Maundy Thursday where we see how Jesus implemented the Lord’s Supper and Good Friday where we recall how he suffered and died for us. On Saturday we start “Easter Story cookies” baking. Then we attend Holy Saturday Mass which is beautiful and long but it leads us from the darkness into the light of Jesus’ resurrection. After mass we have a party at church – usually leaving well after midnight. The next morning we find our empty tomb cookies waiting along with our easter baskets. For us Easter isn’t a day – it’s a 50 day season to continue to revel in God’s love.
I would love to win a copy of this book, I struggle with ways to not commercialize holidays too. We read Christian books, along with participating in our church’s services, and talk about what it means. I’d love to have more ideas to really reinforce to my kids that it’s not all about the chocolate bunny in their baskets. They know what Easter really means, but when that chocolate bunny is staring at them… well, it’s hard not to get more excited about eating that!
Having just recently found out we are pregnant for the first time, I’m looking forward to reading this book to help our family keep the meaning in holidays from the beginning. As for current family traditions – I’ve been working on my parents for years to encourage fewer presents and candy (you name the holiday) and more family and church-focused time.
This sounds like a great resource! It’s so important to understand what and how we celebrate.
I have 3 girls ages 4 1/2, 3 and 18 months. THis year we are starting a new tradition that I found in Noel Piper’s book, Treasuring God In Our Traditions. We are going to halt all activity, cut off the tv and extra noise to have an intentional focus on the the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord. There will be extra time spent in worship, prayer, and reading stories of our Savior.
Sally Allen
Wow….spending some wonderful time just reading these comments. So wonderful and some FABULOUS ideas.
Easter is my absolute favorite holiday. I get more excited than at Christmas…much greater is HIS gift of salvation than that of HIS birth.
Our tradition is to pull out all the stops. I decorate with everything SPRING (in fact picked some AMAZINGLY beautiful wildflowers yesterday) and it is a joyous time to be reminded that I am made clean by HIS precious shed blood.
This past year we incorporated a Passover celebration with friends. What an amazing time to reflect. Are planning again this year.
While I’ve been married almost seven years, my husband and I have often been living in other countries or visiting them over Easter, so we’ve had wonderful experiences and shared in many traditions with other families and friends, but haven’t really embraced any particular ones of our own. Now that our son is almost two and soaking up every little word we say I know how important and significant it is to be teaching and sharing every aspect of this Easter weekend, from Christ’s arrest and death to his resurrection and showing himself to the disciples. I would love to have some great ideas to help us do that together, and this book seems like it would do just that. We did use Ann Voskamp’s Easter devotion last year and will definitely continue that this year…the start to our Easter traditions.
The resurrection buns are one of our favorites. Thanks for the opportunity to win!
Getting together with family! I come from a large family–my parents have seven children, who have children, who have children. What a great time we have passing around the little ones, talking with the big ones, eating, and celebrating together. We do this at every holiday and sometimes in between. On cold days, we fill a whole house (yes, we even eat in the bedrooms!). On warm days, picnics work great for us. Good thing some of us have large yards! What a sight: people laughing and playing everywhere.
We do the resurresction cookies the night before and the Easter bunny only coes if and after we have spent our murning with Jesus.
As a mother of a 14 month old, I would love to start holiday traditions young & Christ centered from the start!
Making Easter baskets for each family member and surprising them with It. Also attending Easter service together still as grown UPS 🙂
We love doing the Resurrection Eggs by Family Life. They are simple, easy and kids big and small think they’re a blast!
I’d love this book. I’m a little craft challenged too.
We have tied in the Passoveer with our Easter celebration. I’m amazed at how much my kids have loved doing a Seder and learning about Jesus being the lamb whose blood covers their sins.
For Easter? Sunrise service at my church. It’s outside and we sing of 2000 years ago as the sun comes up.
I’d love to win! curly2880atyahoodotcom
Love,
Traci
Oh how AWESOME!! We don’t do baskets at all (personal preference). We spend our morning and afternoon at church. We have our Easter service, followed by a brunch.
I typically do not cook on Easter [because I honestly don’t want to]. Usually my mother-in-law takes us out to eat. OR, we’ll pick up food and bring it home.
I don’t want to be wrapped up in the wrong things and stressing over it–that’s why I don’t cook. I want to celebrate and enjoy the day. So we keep it simple. Even if it seems “cheesy” or “tacky” to go out or bring in “take out” on Easter. It’s worth it, to me. 🙂
Our kids are just starting to get to the age where they are getting the meaning behind the holidays so I love the idea of this book!! For Easter, our biggest teaching tool besides just talking about Jesus’ death and resurrection throughout the season is to use our homemade set of resurrection eggs – love ’em!
I completely relate to not being “that” Mom with all of the meaningful and creative craft ideas that just flow naturally…but darn, I try- and use a lot of resources to help me pull off some basics!!! This book looks exceptional – and timely, as this is the first year we’re really trying to figure out how to put meaning in the holidays and create some new family traditions. I can use all the help that’s available!
This year something we’ve done to talk about and celebrate Lent is planting seeds in indoor pots that we’ll transfer outside. (Confession – this is the first time I’ve EVER done any planting of any kind). We talked about the seed as a body, the soil as a grave, the new life that we’ll get to watch grow and related that to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
We will be celebrating Easter for the second time this year with our daughter and would love to have the opportunity to learn how to bring Christ alive to her from a very young age. Not really about a tradition but hope to start some soon. Thanks for this opportunity!
We usually try to have new Resurrection Sunday outfits for our 4 children to wear to church. As for Easter Baskets, last year we gave the oldest 3 Psalms/Proverbs ‘magazines’. Just calling the holiday what it is we celebrate – Resurrection Sunday – has helped keep our focus on our Savior.
I am always looking for more ways to honor Him in our holy-days.
For as long as I can remember we barely slept the night before Easter… not because of pennies and candy but because we would get up extra early and help with breakfast at sun rise services… pancakes, eggbake, French toast…. each year it was different but even when I was only big enough to walk around and hand out little cartons of milk I always knew it was a big deal to have everyone in our church eating breakfast together. Now living out of state and away from that I worry what traditions I’ll pass on to my own kids!
Last year we tried the resurrection cookies for the first time and my kids loved it! We also do the resurreciton eggs.
What a great book. So many craft books are based on secular ideas. It would be great to have an activity book with more meaning. Thanks for the offer!
Our family tradition for Easter is that we all get up before the sun rises and lay a blanket out on the lawn and talk about our blessings we have received over lent. The kids are always amazed when they see the sun come up.
When I was little we would always go down to Florida to spend Easter with my grandparents (I grew up in Michigan) so it was a huge deal! I remember each year their church would have a huge Easter Egg hunt for all the kids after service during the potluck. I have such wonderful memories from that time!
As keeping with my family tradition – I plan a huge Easter brunch for both sides of the family, and any friends who want to be include. W e have an easter egg hunt for all the kids and random games & crafts to keep them all occupied. That evening, we have a beautiful easter dinner. Al long and very fun filled day 🙂
We’ve done away with the bunnies, chicks, etc. and focus on Christ’s resurrection. I would love to learn about more ideas.
I remember baking those resurrection rolls that you mentioned…sure brought a smile to my face =o)
We love to do resurrection buns – where you place a marshmallow in a canned biscuit and then fold the biscuit over it. After baking it in the over, the marshmallow is gone. A great picture of the burial of Jesus and the empty tomb!
I would love to receive this lovely book! One thing that we do in our house is “Hide the Alleluia” on Ash Wednesday, at the start of Lent. The Alleluia for us is a hand-written sign. Then, on Easter morning, as we celebrate the Resurrection, the children hunt for the Alleluia, which is by then festooned with ribbon. It is then prominently displayed in our home.
Grace and peace…
Jeannine
I would love a copy of the book. I have always tried to incorporate the meaning of each holiday with my children. But somehow, just telling them didn’t drive it home. You have a great idea with the crafts.
Happy Easter!
Going to church as a family.
Blessings,
Kendra
http://www.abusywomanslife.com
Oh, I would love to win this book!
We have hosted Easter lunch for the past few years-a mix of family and friends. I love having everyone together. We’re not hosting this year, for a very good reason-we’ll be on our way to adopt our new daughter!
We make a point to attend the family service at our church together. Because my husband and I work at a church, it is really easy to forget about worshiping as a family because we are always at church.
I would love this book!
My little guy is still very young, so this year is the first year that I’m making an effort. I’ve got Resurrection Rolls, Resurrection Cookies, Resurrection Story Eggs, and a basket of Easter stories on the list for the this month! I would love to have this book and glean the wonderful ideas!
One way we celebrate Easter is to make resurrection cookies (meringue cookies). We read scripture that is tied to each ingredient, close the oven with 3 pieces of tape (3 days) and then break open the “tomb” to find it empty and celebrate the resurrection! I found the activity online several years ago and have been doing it with all three kids for the last couple of years.
We have a tradition in our home of honoring the three hours that Christ hung on the cross on Good Friday. During that time, we turn lights out, light a candle (or to be safe, a battery-operated one), and we play quiet board games, read stories and rest all together in our great room. No telephones, computers, friends visiting, or loud voices. Just peaceful, quiet time as we honor Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. On Easter, we sing “Hallelujah” over and over again after reading the Resurrection story. This book sounds so wonderful!
We are trying to incorporate some more meaningful traditions this year, like counting down through Lent with plans to read the Easter story day by day during the week before Easter as a family. We could definitely use some more ideas!
I would LOVE to win this book. I would love to get perspective on ways to teach our little ones the true meanings of the holidays we celebrate. Our favorite Easter tradition, which we haven’t yet incoporated the kiddos into as they’re still a bit young, is to attend a sunrise service. It’s hard to not to feel the joy and wonder of the empty tomb.
We really enjoy getting the kids up for sunrise on Easter morning. In their pajamas we curl up with hot chocolate and enjoy the beauty that is spring and morning. We talk about the resurrection and the joy it brings us.
What a fabulous giveaway! My favorite Easter tradition is to let my children help “flower the cross” on Easter Sunday at our church. All of the children bring flowers from their home gardens and place them in/on the cross to make a cross full of various flowers. Its beautiful.
I would love a copy of this book to help me with more ideas on making all the holidays Christ centered!!!
I’ve never heard of resurrection buns, will definitely look that up. We usually read the Easter story several times out of different Bibles or children’s books, but don’t really have too many traditions yet.
Last year I read Ann Voskamp’s words right here on (in)courage about five ways to celebrate Easter, and was inspired to create an Easter Garden. We were in the middle of packing boxes for a big move, but my four year old and I took a break to hunt for moss, plant seeds, and talk about the cross and the tomb. Our little grass seeds emerged from the soil right on Easter morning. She was amazed, and we were all reminded of His lavish gift – new life.
We really didn’t celebrate Easter (actually most of the holidays) much at all growing up, so it has continued to be a fairly “normal” weekend in our home with our 6 children as well. I would love to read a copy of this book so I can expand my very stunted list of ideas for celebrating various holidays. Thank you for making this offer available to us!
I am so excited to create meaningful ways to celebrate the abundant life, truth and purpose that Jesus has with my family. Emma is just 19 months, so this would be an amazing resource to get us started in the right way. Thank you for the thoughtfulness of giving them away!
Each year my family participates in our church’s Passion play. Some of us are actors and singers, while others help with props, make-up, and/or video taping the performances. It’s a joy to spend the months leading up to Easter with both my biological family as well as our church family.
Favorite Easter traditions… hmmmm…… Ever since the girls were younger they have always enjoyed the Resurrection eggs. And Sunrise services. On “Easter Eve”, Dad and I go outside armed with our bag of plastic Easter eggs filled with pennies, nickels, and dimes and hide them all over the yard. They can’t have the hunt until after church, it builds the excitement. Would love the book. Thank you!
Great sounding book! My favorite memory with my family was hiding and finding eggs and it is soon to be a fun tradition with my young kids as well.
We always go to Easter sunrise service at our country church and then for a potluck breakfast. We make a quick return to my parents house for a change into our Easter best dressed. Then the kids hunt their Easter Baskets and then off to church for a wonderful message with family and friends. Then another wonderful noon dinner. Easter is wonderful!
Participating in the sunrise service with my friends always sounded like a drag but we always had fun.
We always go to sunrise service and have breakfast with our church family. So many wonderful memories about that!!! 🙂
Teaching in a private Christian school gave me many opportunities to teach the kids about how Christians of the past gave someof the pagan symbols “new life” just like Jesus restores all things. For example the Christmas tree is now a symbol of everlasting life and Easter eggs are a symbol of new life.
Our first child was born last June, so this will be her first Easter. We don’t have any standing traditions just yet, but we are hoping to read through a gospel during Lent each year, so that when Easter arrives we will have been anticipating the day’s arrival for 40 days. We hope with so much preparation, the day will really be a celebration of Christ’s resurrection in our lives.
Our church has two large wooden crosses planted in the ground, one by the front entrance and one by the back entrance. Each Easter the facilities director covers the 8 foot crosses with chicken wire and as people come/go from worship they put flowers which from home onto the crosses. My girls love this tradition, and the crosses are stunning to look at! In addition, there is always candy.
We struggle with this at every holiday – it’s so hard when all of your family doesn’t understand what it is you’re trying to teach your children. This book would be a wonderful source of inspiration!
We love making resurrection cookies and growing a little grassy hill over a side-turned pot, our own Calvary to remember our Saviors sacrifice.
Our Easter tradition has always included attending church, Easter egg hunt, and a family brunch. I love the idea of your book and hope to share some of the ideas with our now grown kids and their families.
we celebrate Easter by volunteering as a family at our church, it is so fun to see all the kids dressed up and all the new faces.
An Easter tradition that my family has is making a “calvary hill cake”. We bake a cake in a bowl (the hill) and frost one half in chocolate and put three crosses in it. The other half is frosted green (grass) and a whole is cut out to show the empty tomb. We love this! Thanks for doing this giveaway!
Some of our favorite things are reading through the gospels about Jesus’ last Passover meal, on through the arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection. We also enjoy the Resurrection eggs, dying eggs, and of course celebrating HIS Resurrection with our church family as well as our biological family!
Thanks for this amazing offer. This book sounds like a true treasure.
I too love the holidays but in recent years been convicted of how far away we have gotten from the “real” meaning behind them. Don’t get me wrong, I like the big ol man in the red suit and the bunny who leaves bunny prints(baby powder) behind on Easter morning but I do want Jesus front and center.
This Easter we started a Resurrection Tree that we add “meaningful” ornaments to weekly. While coloring our ornament I explain what the “real” meaning of Easter is.
I am praying that this will stand out in our childrens hearts and minds for years to come.
Oh I love Easter, by far my favorite holiday! My husband and I have decided to make sure and put a huge emphasis on this with our kids bc I think it gets so overlooked but as a Christian, its our biggest celebration of the year! Yes Jesus came into this world as a baby at Christmas, but what if there were no Easter? There would be no culmination of the story or purpose in his human existence…Easter is what sets us apart! We spend lots of time outside on Easter, fellow-shipping with family, reminding ourselves of all that we have to be thankful for and just plan celebrating Jesus! I’ve also recently as of last year found the Jelly Bean Poem about Easter and think its so simple and easy for little ones to grasp! I would love this book for more ideas!
We always have a wonderful celebration service at our church on Easter, followed by an egg hunt for the kids afterwards. I would love to start some new Easter traditions with my family using this book!
One silly, one serious. I love the egg hunt now that I have preschool children. The more serious tradition that I love is attending the Easter Vigil Mass… we don’t go very often because of the kids, but its still lovely to start in the dark church and slowly add more light.
We join a bunch of friends from small group and moms group at a friend’s house for a HUGE Easter egg hunt! It’s so much fun to watch the kids searching for and finding eggs and then all fellowshipping together over some delicious food.
When the children were young, we would decorate eggs and have egg hunts and yes they would have Easter baskets….but we went to church and I tired to teach them from a very young age the real meaning of the holidays.We have always gotten together with family to celebrate as well. Many, many happy memories!
Happy Easter to all!
easter for our family has always been sunrise service overlooking the amazing snake river gorge in eastern washington, then to the church for all-church breakfast (with homemade sausage), church, then afternoon nap!
After church, we celebrate Easter by having an egg hunt. One for the kids and one for the adults.
This book excites me! I love to find all kinds of ways to celebrate Jesus Christ. One of our favorite Easter/Resurrection ideas is a set of HIStory Eggs that tell the history of God’s love and plan of redemption for all mankind.
Thanks for doing a great giveaway!
~Heidi
Would love, love, love to win a copy of this book. Sounds wonderful! We cherish time to worship together at church Easter morning and then a lovely family lunch afterward. Such a special time celebrating our Risen Savior!
We always go to church. We love singing UP From the Grave He Arose, He Lives, The Old Rugged Cross. Then we have a big dinner with all the family. In the afternoon we head outside for an Easter egg hunt in the yard and sit and visit with the kids and grandkids.
I love Easter brunch or dinner with the whole family…but I also need to bring in some fun new traditions so I would love to win a copy!
This book sounds wonderful. As a new born again Chrisitian….I was just baptized this past Sunday (at age 37)!!! I want this Easter to be about Jesus and not about the Easter Bunny! As a family we read about the resurrection and explain to my daughter what Easter is all about.
We love to spend time with family – it’s a short weekend, but a purposeful and meaningful one. I have a 3 and 1 year old, and have full intentions of teaching them right from the start. Thanks for a great giveaway!
We usually go to church and Sunday school then we head over to my husband’s parents home for lunch. The kids usually have a egg/candy hunt.
Struggling with some good traditions to start…right now just consists of the egg hunt and an Easter story book. Would love this book to get some ideas!
Last year we baked resurrection buns, had a neighborhood egg hunt that included resurrection eggs and made bunny cakes. This year I want to add a Good Friday service (the darkening) and going to a sunrise Easter service (never been) then out to breakfast.
mom of 4.
Having some new ideas would be great. We attend church as a family and then eat lunch after church together and spend the day together hiking or biking, taking in the outdoors and talking about how great it is we can enjoy what God made.
I love Easter. This year we are trying to have a modified Passover, we’ll see how it goes. Usually though we enjoy a big meal with our extended family after church.
My little girl is only 2.5, so this is just the second Easter she will celebrate. Since she’s so young, I don’t really know how to make it about Jesus. I am continuing my mom’s tradition of giving useful Easter baskets. Instead of a cheap gaudy plastic basket, use a cd box holder, a flower pot, or even just one of those small desk organizer bins. This year my girl is getting a canvas bag with pockets that hold a shovel and trowel. (And I only add just a few pieces of candy.) So at least our holiday is less wasteful and more practical! But I would love to read up on the ideas in this book. Thank you!
Yes, we need to put God and Jesus back into the Holidays and even
teach the seven Jewish feast days such as Passover with Easter and the resurrection!
I would love to give a copy to dear friends about to have their first baby. Thanks for the opportunity!
We’ve done many things over the year… Resurrection rolls… Resurrection Eggs… Benjamin’s Box… But always, its “Resurrection Day” and we are together as a family, we worship/celebrate together, read The Story from scripture together and share a special meal…
(thanks for the giveaway!)
My kiddos are still little but we are trying to instill in them the meaning of Easter at such a young age, how wonderful this book would be! But my tradition growing up was church with the family, followed by a wonderful easter lunch and then the egg hunt for all young and old:)
We go to church and spend the day with family.
One of the most memorable ways I celebrated Easter was driving to the ocean with my then teenaged youngest son and watching the sun rise from the Atlantic. It was a very special moment where it was just the two of us seeing Easter awaken.
This would be a great book to have. My kids are finally at the age to understand the difference and it would help me help them tremendously. Our Easter tradition is the usual – Easter baskets, egg hunt, church and a wonderful yummy meal. 🙂
I have a 2 1/2 year old so I am looking to start some meaningful traditions with him. We usually go to church and then spend time with family. I would love to have this book!!
My husband and I watch The Passion of the Christ each Easter season. We read stories of the true meaning of Easter with the children and then celebrate with family on Easter Sunday hiding eggs and celebrating over a big family meal. As with every season we watch the Peanuts Gang’s specials (The Easter Beagle for Easter). I am looking for ways to incorporate more and more activities into our days leading to Easter for the kids. Their hearts are fertile for the Way the Truth and the Life. Thanks for this opportunity!
Brooke
We celebrate Resurrection Day by attending worship service together. They we gather with family and share a wonderful meal remembering all that Christ has done for us.
BBQ and family softball games in the yard at grandmas house!
We do resurrection eggs with the kids throughout the season and make empty tomb cookies.
It has ALWAYS been important to me to make every holiday special and chocked full of meaning. I’m constantly on the hunt for ideas. For Easter, we celebrate the whole season of Lent with symbolic acts, different devotions, egg decorating, resurrection egg hunt, and I just downloaded Ann Voskamp’s Easter devotional.
My husband and I do not have any children yet. And we don’t have many traditions for holidays either. I have been looking for ways to add real meaning to the holidays. The gifts are not important to me. I would much rather do for someone or show love in meeting a need. I would love a copy of this book to read and share with my friends who have children. Thanks for the opportunity.
We love using the Resurrection Eggs!
We celebrate throughout the month by talking about what Easter REALLY is, reading about it in the Bible, and celebrating our Lord’s Ressurection with our church family.
I have three little ones… just turned 5, 2.5 and 1.5. We share the Good News and give Easter baskets full of little sweet reminders… little stories about Jesus books, etc. I would LOVE a copy of this book!
My family’s favorite way of celebrating Easter is per my son looking for Easter Eggs….this year we are going to try Resurrection eggs. 🙂
We love sunrise services in the mountains (even if it’s a bit cold and snowy), and then warm breakfast. We ready books, and spend the day as a family. Would love this book!
We love the ressurection eggs, watching a Veggie Tale Easter, and of course hunting for eggs.
Thank you for this giveaway! We enjoy doing the Resurrection Eggs each Easter and reading board books about Jesus and Easter.
This is our first Easter not traveling and as parents. We’ve been discussing and researching how to keep holidays Christ centered so this book would be a treasure! This year we will be attending church services and reflecting on Scripture.
We don’t have any set in stone traditions and that makes me sad. The best part is spending it with 2 families that are our best friends. We always do Thanksgiving together and we often do Easter.
Right now we don’t have any set traditions, other than going to church. But now that we have a son, who is 10 months old, I would definitely like to start doing some things to teach him the true meaning of the holiday. Thanks for sharing about this neat book!
I’ve been thinking a lot about this book lately. I think I really need to read it. I love brunch with the family on Easter, but I would love to create more meaningful Easter traditions for my children than I had.
Simple…go to church, spend time with family, bbq, and hide eggs for the kiddos.
Our Easters have always been pretty simple. Easter baskets, a new dress (usually) and church. Then a nice dinner with friends or family – at home or pot luck. I’d love to start meaningful traditions in our little family! (No kiddos just yet, but we are in the process of adoption…) 🙂
I’m afraid we don’t have many traditions–that’s why I need this book! I remember when I was a kid mom HAD to buy a new Easter dress for me every year. No white shoes until Easter, either 🙂
Thanks for the giveaway!
LOvE this idea! We have done then resurrection eggs at Easter but honestly, it’s more the conversation of all things being new that catches more of our attention. I try to bring it all back to Easter being our time of new life but I would love some new ideas.
we did our first egg hunt last year with our little one, which was so sweet. our church “buries the alleluia” before lent. there is a short liturgy, and posters spelling it out and decorated by the children are retired in a box, and it is not said during lent as we recite a more somber liturgy. easter morning, the cheerful posters brighten the church and it is the first word said in celebration of the empty tomb.
this sounds perfect! if I don’t win I’m going to amazon 🙂
I would love this book! I’ve been trying to find more ways to use these special holidays to point my kids to Christ. Last year my son and I made a cross cake , and talked about the story of the cross while making it. I would love more ideas!
Sounds like a great book. I’m still trying to figure out traditions with my daughter (she’s still a bit young to really understand) but try to include books in her easter basket that focus on the resurrection story. Thanks for the opportunity to win!
I would love ths book because I often don’t know what to do to establish traditions. My kids go back and forth between their dad and I on Easter, and I would love to have traditions where they remember and know Christ as being what Easter’s about.
what a wonderful book to use as e teach or 6 children about Jesus during the Holiday time. How exciting it would be to win!
This will be the first Easter for my son and I really want to work on creating a Christ-centred holiday for him, so although he may not quite be fully aware of the importance of this day I still plan on sharing the Easter story with him by reading from the bible. Your never to young to learn from the word of God.
I would LOVE to win this book! This sounds wonderful! I’m always looking for new ways to incorporate the real meaning of Jesus behind the holidays. To celebrate Easter we have been going down to my husbands’ aunt’s house for the past couple years. Before we drive there we go to my husband’s fathers church. We get the girls all dressed up in their Sunday best and of course I like to teach the girls the phrase “He is Risen!” and “He is Risen Indeed!” from about as soon as they can talk! :0)
With very young children, we are just starting to find/search for creative ways to celebrate the holidays with Christ as the main focus. This book seems like it would be very helpful!!
When we first moved to the town where we currently live, we were invited to Easter Sunday lunch with friends. They invited people who didn’t have family in town to celebrate with. We now do this in an informal way. We have celebrated with our babysitter (now married & a baby), plus whoever needs a place to land on Easter. It is our way of reaching out to others. We use our china, have a special meal and an Egg Hunt for all ages. It makes our guest feel welcome and loved.
I would love new ideas!
Church and spending time with family
We’ve been enjoying lighting a candle every night of Lent; it has given us so many opportunities to talk about Jesus and Easter.
Our church has a family Easter celebration on Saturday morning of Easter weekend. We head to that for a pancake breakfast, (religious) Easter crafts, and of course, an egg hunt. While we are gone, the Easter Bunny visits our house and so we get to enjoy our Easter baskets when we get home. Sunday is reserved for focusing on the resurrection and with the baskets and candy out of the way, we aren’t rushing and totally stressed out when we get to church!
Our family has always gone to the sunrise service. Now that tour girls are married, we have continued the tradition. We all meet at the sunrise service to worship together. We arrive back to our home early and we all work to prepare the Easter feast for my family, who all attend their “traditional” church service. Lunch is ready when they arrive and we can spend time together as a family.
For the last 5 years my husband has facilitated an all church Easter pot luck lunch. Last year we had almost 80 people in attendance. Friends are always invited. It is just a great time of food and fellowship.
This year, we are making an Easter tree, inspired by Ann Voskamp’s blog post. A journey to remember the cross!
We will be doing the Ressurection eggs this year for the first time!
Legos have been a part of our Easter baskets for several years now – what a fabulous idea to incorporate those even more deeply into the meaning of Easter!
The last few years, Easter has changed a lot! I became saved, I got married and I lived away from my family. But I will say that one of my favorite memories from last Easter was my niece from South Africa doing an Easter egg hunt and going through her basket 🙂 it was so fun!
I would love this, holidays are so special ^_^
Sounds like a great book for any family…….I like to do special things with my 2 youngest grandkids at holiday time. Christmas and Easter are my two favorites!
I completely agree! We’ve taken God out of the holidays. This sounds like such a great book to get back on track.
We never did the Easter basket thing, but we did spend time with our Extended Family (Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins). Now that we’re grown, it’s harder to get everyone together…and I sure miss it!
Thanks for a great giveaway…and a great reminder of what we truly celebrate.
Always Easter Service in the morning then big lunch with the family. I would love to have this book, maybe it would give me some ideas.
Our fave way to celebrate Easter has always been getting together with my grandparents every year for lunch and Easter egg hunts after attending church. I have always known the true meaning of Easter and now that I have a young daughter it is fun to think of ways to celebrate the true meanings of holidays. The book sounds awesome!
We have been doing the Resurrection eggs as a count down to Easter and the kids love it. I’d love to try some new Easter celebration ideas. This book sounds great.
We will be doing Resurrection Eggs again this year as well as, of course, going to church on Easter Sunday, followed by dinner with my brother’s family & my parents!
This book sounds fabulous!
We love to celebrate Easter by going to church and then having a lovely dinner. Most often it’s shared with friends, and that makes it even more special.
In addition to the easter egg hunt and church service, we started a new tradition this year – an Easter Tree. We decorate it with beautiful art depicting Christ’s journey to the cross and easter eggs. We read scripture about Christ as the month leads up to Easter! I read once that Easter should be as exciting as Christmas, and my daughters LOVE the Easter Tree and learning about how Jesus rescued us!
I would LOVE this book. It feels like we are constantly battling a cultural war to keep God at the center of holidays. One of our favorite new traditions is the Resurrection buns on Easter morning. But I would love to hear more ideas about each holiday!!
Gee, I am late coming in on this but I have made it before the 500 yay!
One of the things I really enjoy doing with my kids over Easter is reading bible stories, treasure hunts and story eggs. The best bit is I can wrap all those into one activity and my boys love it.
We’re still establishing our traditions in our little family. As a kid, I always enjoyed the Easter egg hunt, but I think I liked it most because it was like one big game of hide and go seek! 🙂 I just printed off Ann Voskamp’s devotional, and I am really looking forward to creating the tree she describes … similar to a Jesse Tree!
One of the things we make sure we do is color eggs. My kids and hubby say it just isn’t Easter unless we do this.
We make cinnamon rolls for Easter because the stone has been ROLLed away. He is risin!
Sounds like a wonderful book! Would LOVE to have it. 🙂
I would love to have this book!
Our family has used the Resurrection Eggs each Easter for years. They love opening each egg and reading the scripture verse that goes with the egg. I also make sure that their easter baskets contain something on the spiritual side–whether it be a Christian music CD, a Bible, devotional book, etc.
Sharing the traditional Easter brunch with family following church!
One of our favorite traditions is the Easter Egg hunt 🙂
I have enjoyed doing the resurrection eggs with my children. I also found a children’t book about Easter last year that did a really nice job of explaining the stages leading to and after the crucifiction. But, I’m always looking for new ways to make the holiday more than a celebration of chocolate. Maybe I’ll be the lucky winner?
We try to make Easter and Lent a special time by doing the Resurrection Eggs, talking about what Jesus did for us, and giving of our time and money. This book has been on my radar for awhile and I would love to read it!
This past Christmas was extra special ~ thanks to beautiful Ann, we had a party for Jesus
http://pursuingjoy.blogspot.com/2010/12/happy-birthday-jesus.html
thanks for the chance to win this book ~ it sounds absolutely wonderful!!
My children enjoy Resurrection Eggs, as well as decorating their own eggs with symbols of Easter — the cross, the empty tomb, etc… The book sounds terrific!
What a great idea for a book! It reminds me of a book I read before my wedding about remembering to invite God to your Wedding. I loved that book and shared it with my friends before they got married too. Hopefully this one is that good too!
I hope to make this Easter celebration a holy one, even just for myself only. And then hopefully next Easter, we could do with the whole family.
Growing up, my family wasn’t very religious, so the Easter celebrations always included Easter egg scavenger hunts, without any mention of Christ’s resurrection. Now that I’m married, trying to start a family, and most importantly, a Christian, I earnestly desire to raise my children knowing Christ. Easter (or any day for that matter) is the perfect time to share Jesus with my children!
My family would put on scavengar hunts for my sister and I, with Easter baskets at the end. But the lesson in this would be that the Bible is our guide to find Jesus, just like the clues in the hunt were our guide to find the basket.
Our Easter traditions so far are quite traditional: church, lunch, eggs, hunts, baskets. I would love some more meaningful things to try with my family!