First things first… I am not a holiday “Scrooge”. I love holidays. I’m far from being the “holiday mom”, but I love that holidays give us a great opportunity to take a step back, reflect upon the season, and spend time with the folks that matter most. For me, those people are all wrapped up in one word: FAMILY.
Because of who I am, what my talents are (and aren’t), and where our budget needs to be, most holidays and the traditions associated with them at our house are SIMPLE. Our kids are still pretty little, and the fact that we have traditions is more important to them than what those traditions entail. For instance, we have a “Friday Night Movie Night” tradition each week around here. Sometimes we watch something from our collection, and sometimes we watch the latest kid’s release from Red Box. Other times we check out a DVD at our local library. And when we really want to get crazy, my husband and I pull out faves from our own childhood days. Our kids look forward to it each and every week. If we have to miss our movie night for any reason, or if one of us isn’t around that night to join in, you can bet our kiddos will put up a fuss. Sure, this tradition doesn’t revolve around a holiday, but it’s consistent and is something that we all look forward to. Isn’t that ultimately part of what we love about holidays? They are consistent, and for the most part, we all look forward to them.
So when Easter rolled around last year, I found myself wanting to take a different approach to the bunny-filled baskets we’ve used in the past. My husband and I chatted a bit about things and came up with this idea:
We called it our “family fun” basket, and we filled it with a few of the things that we love to do together (like watch movies!). As you can see, we still included some of the bunny treats and an egg coloring kit. I’m not anti-Easter commercialism. In fact, some of these candies are once-a-year favorites of mine (can we say “Cadbury Eggs”!?!). We just felt like we could make it better by taking a different approach to Easter morning.
The most meaningful change we made here can be found in the note that we included in our group gift basket (you can click on the picture to enlarge it and read through the text):
“Family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.” (From The Family: A Proclamation to the World. To learn more about that, click here.) We want to remind our kiddos of that fact in everything that we do, including (and especially) our holiday traditions. The only way for our family to be together forever is through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He is the Way and the Light. It is because His tomb was empty that first Easter morning that we are able to have true joy here and in the eternities. Every time we spend precious moments with each other we can be reminded of this great Gift.
And yes, that’s right. We full-on signed our names to this instead of telling the kids it came from the Easter Bunny. We wanted them to know that Mom and Dad love family time and our Savior, Jesus Christ. And you know what? Not a single one of our littles questioned the fact that this came from us and not a mysteriously elusive rabbit. They were too busy being excited about what a treat it is to have chocolate milk and cinnamon rolls for breakfast AND to have Daddy here in the morning to eat with us.
This year we are planning to continue our “family fun” basket for Easter morning. It will still be simple. And I’m striving to pull in a few little Christ-centered items and activities this time around. But in general, I think this twist on tradition is here to stay. 🙂
Want to chime in? Have an idea of something great I could add to our basket? Feel free to comment below and share your own creative Christ-centered celebrations of this beautiful holiday!