Five Tips for a More Spiritual Easter
Children can’t help but notice that Easter looks a lot like Christmas in the stores. The shelves are filled with Easter baskets, toys and candy. For many families, the simple basket becomes fuller and fuller until it is hard to remember the point of Easter. Following are five tips to move your Easter to a more spiritual celebration:
1. Enlist the support of your children. Hold a family home evening lesson on the purpose of Easter and ask your children to describe your Easter traditions, writing each answer on a board. Highlight in green those traditions which promote a spiritual Easter and in red those things that do not. As your children make these choices, ask them for help in making your Easter more green.
2. Receive baskets on Saturday instead of Sunday. Children go on a special outing or service project Saturday evening and return home to find their baskets waiting for them. The Saturday project might involve delivering baskets of homemade goodies to special people who would appreciate them.
3. Besides the candy, kept to a reasonable amount, add only items meant to be used on Sunday. We had a Sunday box when our children were small, and we filled it with appropriate Sabbath activities. They each received one or two items to add to this box each Easter, such as spiritual books or church-based games. Now that they are older, they receive a gift from our local LDS bookstore, which we try to frequent often to be sure we will always have one nearby. These are gifts with a church purpose–-a tie, new scriptures, LDS books or a CTR ring, for example. Unless it’s time for new scriptures, the gifts are inexpensive.
4. Prepare a cold meal of salads for Easter or one that can be simply heated. This way cooking is minimal. Use disposable dishes and be sure the cooking clean-up is completed on Saturday.
5. Even though your children will have an Easter lesson in Church, they will learn even more when the lessons are taught at home. Plan something special Sunday evening to emphasize what was learned at church.
