How We Celebrate Easter
Easter is such a fun time of year. Sunrise service, pretty Spring dresses, egg hunts, family get-togethers, and lots of delicious food! But in all of the commotion and running around, do we truly stop and meditate on the reason for our celebrating? Do we tell our children about the Resurrection of Christ, or are we too caught up in “The Easter Bunny” coming?
If I asked your children what Easter is about, what would they tell me?
I grew up in a home where we did the whole dying and hunting for eggs, and waiting for the Easter Bunny to come in the morning and leave us a basket full of goodies. It was a lot of fun. I loved Easter. I loved all of the toys and candy I got. And if you had asked me what Easter was about I would have told you, without hesitation, “It’s when the Easter Bunny comes and brings us lots of CANDY!”
What a shame. A perfect opportunity to have been taught what the Lord has done for me… waisted.
Of course I never thought anything of it. It wasn’t until I had my own precious children when I began to re-think how we should celebrate our Christian holidays. My eyes were opened to the commercialism of the day, and I was disgusted.
The Resurrection of our Lord has turned into a three ring circus. Stores fill their shelves with plastic eggs, stringy fake grass, colorful baskets holding all sorts of cheap toys, stuffed animals, hollow chocolate bunnies, artificially flavored jelly beans; and a guy in a fuzzy white costume comes to the mall and all of the little children get to have their picture taken with The Easter Bunny.
But where is Christ?
I find it incredibly saddening that children have to be reminded that Easter is about Christ raising from the dead, and not about the Easter Bunny or even about all of the junk they are going to get.
Because of these convictions, my husband and I decided early on that we would not tell our children that there is an Easter Bunny, nor would we fall into the commercialism of the holiday. No cheesy cards, no toys, no baskets full of nothing but junk, no plush rabbits. Nothing to make them think that the holiday is about them instead of Christ.
What? You say. No Easter Bunny? Your poor, deprived children! They’re missing out on all the fun!
No. Not really. Just because we don’t make up some fantasy creature to steal the scene doesn’t mean that we don’t have any fun. The kids dye eggs, and we hide them, and the children hunt for them. We read the Easter story from a children’s Bible. We do fun crafts to celebrate the Lord. We sing songs, and talk about Christ’s death and when he came alive again. We bake colorful sugar cookies. We go to church, and visit with family, and eat and have a wonderful time. Believe me, they are missing nothing!
This was especially hard for the grandparents to understand at first. It’s hard for some people to go against the “norm”. Some simply didn’t understand why we couldn’t tell our kids about the Resurrection AND pretend there is an Easter Bunny. Well, I’ll tell you why. Because I don’t see any reason to tell my children anything about a bunny coming when Christ is the entire reason for our celebrating. There is plenty of fun to be had without taking our eyes off of our Savior. And why would we want to?
So, I am proud to say that if you ask my children what Easter is about, they will happily tell you about the love of Christ.
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I completely understand. My little guy isn’t old enough to know this stuff yet, but already I get the odd dirty look and comment about how mean I will be to him when they find out I plan to not fill my child with halmark lies. If my child desides when he is older that he wants to play along with Santa and the Easter bunny that is fine, but we will still have fufilling holidays thinking about family and doing all the same things without the expensive characters that stand for nothing but the ‘gimmie gimmie’s.
Besides, children are smarter than some give credit to, and how do they know at such a young age that it is ‘okay’ to lie about some things and not about others, and that we tell them the truth to teach them with one hand, but spout fantasies as if they were real with the other… Oh well, I know most people don’t agree, and may think its extreme, but power to you for keeping a religious holiday religious.
Completely and totally agree. Our parents don’t understand either, but they respect that this is the way we want to raise our kids. We want our kids to know that there is no greater thing in life to celebrate than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ – EVERYDAY! Blessings on you and your family this RESURRECTION Sunday!
Okay, I’m going to voice an opinion here and as it may not be widely accepted I mean no offense to anyone. I take GREAT OFFENSE in those that think I’m lying to my children as if its this horrible, horrible thing. We do all the “halmark” characters and we have great fun with it. BUT in the same respect we make sure our children KNOW the reason for EVERY season including Christmas. Although my children believe in Santa Claus and the Easter bunny they will also tell you why we have Christmas and Easter. They know the real reasons for the seasons and think its fun that the “characters” help us celebrate that. People may think that I’m lying to my children and I’m taking the reason for the holiday out but I’m not. I take pride in the fact that my children know the true reason of the season once at the age to truly understand and I don’t think anyone else who doesn’t do the “halmark” characters are depriving their children at all. I know plenty of people that don’t “lie” to their children. Its all in how you do it, and I personally think these “lukewarm Christians” as they’re called play into the commercialization of it all. Oh and in the basket of stuff my kids get its always something educational, useful and religious based. I don’t buy junk. So when you ask my children who believe in the commercialized characters what Easter is about they will tell you every single time “its when Christ died on the cross and rose into the sky”. Again, I mean no offense to anyone just voicing my opinion on the opposite spectrum!
We tell our kids about Santa, but not the Easter bunny. I don’t really know why though. Maybe because I have always thought the EB was a ridiculous story since it involved an intelligent rabbit. But we still do the candy thing and being the dad, I get to share in the loot!
This is the first year I am studying more on this topic. I have a 2 year old and 4 year old. I never celebrated “Easter Sunday” growing up. I was raised a Jehovah Witness. However, now that I am older, I do not believe all of their beliefs, but I am thankful that I am not so tied to a tradition, that I can’t learn the truth and be able to detach from the worldly traditions of man. After learning the real meaning behind Easter and reading the bible, we will not be participating in Easter activities as well. I am just curious, if you see it for what it is, how do you explain the dying and hiding of eggs though? Doesn’t that kind of play into the pagan practices? The more I am learning, God tells us how to worship him. When we say we do it to worship him, we are setting the rules and it is not meant that way.
I grew up full well knowing the ” reason for all the holiday seasons”, and having christmas and easter too, I just see nothing wrong with letting kids be kids for a few years. I was raised in a christian home and so were my kids, so I guess thats why I see nothing wrong with it when its kept in perspective. isnt it kind of akward ( I cant spell this morning) with thier little cousins at grandmas house? do they hunt eggs anyway? I just think its possible to be christian and have fun too.
We don’t do Easter bunnies or tooth fairies or Santa, and we ALWAYS get a hard time!! But then again we get a hard time for only wearing skirts and homeschooling and lots of other “weird” things we do! haha!! Funny thing is we started out doing those things, and we we decided to really start living biblical and stop telling lies..we sat the kids down, told them that we wanted to line things up with the Bible and that those things weren’t in there, but that we were still going to celebrate all those holidays and have fun, just not with the fake stuff….they were like…OK. Whatever. They never even flinched! This morning my 3rd daughter came to my room and said..MOMMY TOMORROW JESUS WILL RISE AGAIN!!! AND WE’RE GETTING TO SEE OUR FRIENDS AND EAT HAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She was SO excited!! ;D
They will hide eggs as well…they also get resurrection candy! ;D
cj- you know, I haven’t really studied where the tradition to dye eggs came from. It could very well be a pagan practice that I didn’t know of. Hmmmm. Well, we do it to celebrate. It’s a game, and that’s all it is. So, we will continue doing it. I’m sure there are hundreds of things that we do today that began with a pagan tradition. I guess what matters is the spirit in which you are doing something. Good for you for breaking away and trying to learn and study on your own!! We should all read the Bible and study it on our own instead of taking the word of another man!!!
sandra- actually, we’ve had no awkward moments. I’ve explained to my kids that some people like to pretend these things, so we won’t ruin their fun. But we choose not to talk about those things which would take away from Christ, and they totally understand that. I completely agree that you can be a Christian and still have fun… that’s what WE do. But you can also have fun with Christ, instead of taking away from HIS day. Just my humble opinion. I do not look down on those who do not share my view. It is our conviction. I’m just sharing what we do, and why.
My kids are 14, 10, & 8. We have not done the “Easter BUnny” in 5 years! I agree that it has become too commerical & the focus is only on getting candy that you don’t eve need. The kids never really missed it when I took it away. I think my husband did the most just because it was different than how he grew up! For Christmas we started the kids out that Santa only brings 1 gift. This dates back to the the original St. Nicholas. That is how we always talked about “Santa” as St. Nicholas. Christmas has become just as commerical & all about what “I” want for Christmas.
Everyone should find what works for their family & thank God every day for those blessings that He has given us. Thanking Him today for the Savior he sent! And if we want to hide easter eggs & give gifts & celebrate with family then I know God is looking down, smiling, and enjoying us being with our family & friends! Have a great Easter!
Kendra- youre right about God understanding the spirit in which we do different things like christmas, easter, etc. I have heard of some people that are really rigid in their thinking, and I just dont agree with it, none of us were hear 2000 years ago, and none of us are God anyway. I think the lord wants us to enjoy life and our kids too. and I belive he knows the spirit in which we do things too. Its a good thing he’s merciful, right? I figure he has alot more to judge than easter egg hunts.
We don’t teach our kids about the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. But we do get our children a gift or two for each holiday to celebrate. But they know the gifts are from mom and dad, and we always discuss the REAL reason we are celebrating the holiday (Christ!). It always cracks me up when right around a holiday someone at WalMart or wherever will ask the kids, “are you excited about Santa coming?” and my kids will just stare at them as if they’re crazy. They have no idea.
IN our family, one of the main reasons we don’t do do Santa and Easter Bunny is because it is important in our family that the words we speak are truth. We teach our children that their words should be ones of truth. And I can’t reconcile telling my children something is true when it’s not with speaking words of truth. I’m not perfect by any means but I want my children to always trust that I am telling them the truth. Now once you add that with the fact that these two holidays that have fake characters are the ones celebrating our Lord, you lose me.
Does Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day have a fake character that brings them gifts? No, only the ones celebrating the TRUE GIFT. I believe this is by design and as a family are convicted not to take part in it. We teach our children that other families do Santa and the Easter Bunny. We have instructed them to do their best not to tell but in no way are they to lie either. That has never been a problem yet and my oldest is 10. I doubt it ever will be.
Kristen- Yeah, it never fails… Christmastime is horrible when it comes to strangers asking the kids if Santa is going to come to see them. Their reactions crack me up too! It’s either the blank face, or the rebuking “We don’t celebrate Santa, WE celebrate JESUS.” Nobody seems to know how to respond to that!! LOL.
Kim- YES!!! I can’t believe I forgot to mention that aspect of it. That’s a whole other great point. If we lie to our children and tell them that there is a Santa or an Easter Bunny that they should “believe” in, then what’s to say that when they find out the truth about them they won’t question us when we tell them to “believe” in God? They might be skeptical of blind faith after having been lied to. All children are different, so I’m not saying that all children will make this connection, it certainly didn’t hinder my faith. But, it is a possibility, and to me, this “fun” simply is just not worth the chance of becoming a stumbling block to my child in the future. There are too many other fun ways to celebrate our Lord!!
Good point about the other holidays not having characters who bring the children gifts. Interesting. I definitely agree that that is by design!!
This sounds like my Christmas growing up. People can not fathom that I did not and still do not honor Santa Claus. I have a little fun with it with my children and they know he isnt real but we still leave cookies. I have never met the I am sureyou can look it up but there are some cookies that you put in the oven over night that goes along with the Easter story that might be fun. I am sure you can just type in Easter cookie and it will come up somewhere. =) Good for you to keep the junk out of it!
Found it!
http://www.allhomemadecookies.com/recipes/drop/easterstorycookies.htm
sounds a lot like how we do things around here! If you said the Easter Bunny is comming our kids would be so confused! =) They do know that grandma is bringing a few treats though! =)
None of that stuff here, either. Our reasoning is that they can’t see Jesus but they believe he’s real. If they believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, etc., whom they don’t see, what are we to tell them when they get older and find out that the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus are not real but try to convince them that Jesus is? We lied about the… See More EB and SC, what about Jesus? I know it’s a bit of a stretch for an adult mind, but for a child…
We do fun things, too. We have a Passover celebration, we watched the Jesus movie last night (Good Friday), and today we’ll make some special Resurrection Cookies (posted on the blog- FYI) and have an egg hunt with Resurrection eggs to retell the story. Tomorrow church services and lunch with family afterward. If my children are asked what Easter is about they will tell you…probably even quote scripture.
You go, Kendra!! Keep on keepin’ it real and alive for your children! Don’t worry what others think!
I really struggled w/stuff like this last Christmas. Our kids didn’t get presents from Santa and we got hassled a bit…long story. But this year I really wanted to establish some special Easter traditions b/c I was annoyed that we go all out w/a tree and stuff but we don’t do anything to outwardly (out of church anyway) celebrate Easter. We are hoping to make Resurrection Cookies (have you seen the recipe for them? So cool!) and I asked my hubby if he could build a cross for the front yard next year. I also hope to plan ahead for next year and think of a few other ideas =)
Kendra,
I grew up without the Easter Bunny or Santa, and my children are growing up the same. I never once remember going without. We got candy and those puffy marshmallow bunnnies in the after-Easter sale. We got Christmas stockings and presents. We just always knew that it was our parents who sacrificed to get them for us. The real reason is Jesus. I don’t think it’s awful to use the bunny or Santa, but the reason we don’t do them is because, when my boys are old enough to understand that it’s only a made up story, and not the truth…. and Jesus is supposed to do everything that Santa does…. and Mommy and Daddy told them that BOTH were true…. Did Mommy and Daddy LIE about Jesus???? I never wanted the confusion. Because it’s about Jesus, we get Jesus a present (usually change that we have been collecting all month) and put it in the offering plate at church. That way they realize who the focus is on. I really like that you do this. It’s encouraging to know other moms are the same.
Im so not trying to tell you what you are doing is wrong because I think what you are doing with your children is great, I just always share this story about my husband when people talk about the easter bunny or santa.
My husband grew up in a VERY religious home and was never taught to believe in Santa Clause, but they got gifts from mama and daddy “hoho”, but now my husband goes totally overboard for holidays! I swear hes gonna have our house looking like the Griswalds if he has his way and hes all about making Santa and the Easter bunny seem real.
It just goes to show that just because we raise our children a certain way does not mean they will always have the same views as we do.
I agree with you! We didn’t raise our kids to believe in Santa or the Easter bunny, and it was tough on the grandparents. I just hated to lie to my children! I felt it was wrong! Now that they are all older (26, 21, 16)I still feel like it was the right choice! Good for you and keep it up!
Lauren,
Thanks for the insider info
That’s so funny. I guess it depends on how it is explained to the children. If parents are like, “We just don’t do that!” and are all strict and rigid about it, then the kids might not respect their reasoning, or even understand their reasoning. And if the “no” isn’t replaced with a “yes”, then the kids may resent being “different”. I think if you explain to your children, in a way that they can understand, why you celebrate differently, then they may be more willing to accept that. And if you make it fun, and not so “religious” and strict, then they won’t feel like they missed out on something.
We teach our children around these holiday’s what the “orginal” meaning of the holiday is, how “Christianity” was incorporated in to them. Then we read them what the Bible says about putting Gods before them. We learn about what Jesus celebrated, and what he did not! We are for truth in everything, even our Christian life
This is what we do as well.
My kids have always known that the real reason for Christmas and Easter is Jesus, but we have also done the whole santa and easter bunny thing. A couple of years ago, when I told them there was no Santa or Easter bunny, the first thing my son said to me was “You lied to us?” I had to explain that yes, I did, but it bothered me that I was doing that and that’s why I had to tell them the truth. I had also been struggling with the kids thinking that if I told them to believe in Santa and the Easter bunny, would they put God in the same category? Anyway, my kids still want all the candy and presents (they are kids) but we keep the focus on Jesus instead of the goodies.
On a side note, this year we just gave the kids one Easter treat, but they saved their own money and hit the Easter candy sales the day after!
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