Easter Week

This year for Easter our family had a marvelous experience remembering the final week of Christ's life and His resurrection. Last year my friend Wendi did this with her family using the book A Christ-Centered Easter by Janet and Joe Hales. I was so impressed by the activites she had planned that I bought the book (on after-Easter clearance..bonus!). This was our week but there are so many other ideas in the book! Every day we read the assigned scriptures and posted a GAK picture on the wall, plus these extra activities. What I sense in retrospect was that the focus of our Easter was directly on Christ and His sacrifice for us. The boys were so interested in what we read and talked about and the spirit was so strong in our home. The Easter Bunny became just a sidenote instead of being the exciting thing to look forward to.

Day 1 (Palm Sunday): We cut palm branches from our tree and taught them why the people shouted hosanna and waved the palm leaves.

Day 2 (Cleansing the Temple): For FHE we did the Easter story in the eggs and talked about cleansing our home and our lives.

Day 3 (Parables and Teachings): For scripture reading we read some of Jesus' parables and then at bedtime we read The Parable of the Bicycle by Stephen E. Robinson.

Day 4 (Rest in Bethany): We ate a Jerusalem-style dinner (broiled fish, honeycomb, raisins, olives, melon, cucumber, goat cheese and almonds).

Day 5 (The Last Supper/Gethsemane): We ate Passover dinner and talked about the symbolism of each item (lamb, unleavened bread, grape juice and bitter herbs).

Day 6 (Jesus' Trial and Crucifixion): We went shopping and bought the boys all new white shirts (thanks Nana and Papa!) to symbolize the purity of the sacrifice and the newness of life. We were going to have three hours of darkness with the lights off in our house but I forgot.

Day 7 (The Jewish Sabbath): We went to the Mesa Temple Easter Pageant. Isaac thinks Jesus can fly and told his Nursery teacher all about it!

Day 8 (Jesus' Resurrection and Appearances): I was pretty forgetful these few days and was going to wake the children in the morning with the Hallelujah Chorus but it didn't happen. Anyway, we did the traditional jelly bean hunt and the Easter Bunny brought simple baskets for the boys. Then we watched The Prince of Egypt and had friends over for Easter dinner ("normal" food like ham and yummy potatoes).

There are lots of things I would do the same next year and several new things as well. Awesome!