Resurrection Traditions and Celebrations

I always have high hopes of having a month-long celebration leading up to Resurrection Sunday. We do that for Christmas and this holiday has much more significance. My first thought was to find books for each day as we do for Advent but that is quite difficult unless I wanted to invest a chunk of money to buy them. A visit to the library quickly reminded me of the world's emphasis on this time of year -- baby chicks and the Easter bunny. Scratch that idea. We stuck with the books we already had and began reading through one of my Lamplighter favorites -- Joel, Boy of Galilee among others.

I am so thankful that I was finally able to pull together a simple Passover Seder that we celebrated together on Maundy Thursday. Beef roast was the meat of choice rather than lamb but it was the idea of it and we are good at pretending. We also had unleavened bread and hard boiled eggs and since I didn't get a chance to make the haroset with chopped apples we had applesauce instead. I think the kids favorite part was taking sips of the "wine" and repeating promises of God.

The kids all had fun with the idea of washing each others hands. No, we did not do the feet but it was a good lesson in serving and I don't think they could wash feet without bursting out laughing even more.

Parsley, a sign of life, dipped in salt water reminding us of the tears of the Israelites.

And while we are not Catholic I found the "script" which so simplified things for me on a Catholic Families website.

Good Friday a few of the boys and I went to help out at the nursing home. They wheeled some of the residents to the chapel. Then I played the piano while my Dad led the singing. I always enjoy hearing his joyful voice it just makes me smile to hear him sing.

We had fun dying eggs with Kool-aid this year although we didn't think the colors were quite as pretty. After the kids were done Dad and I had our turn to create our masterpieces.

My rainbow egg

We also did have our traditional German Russian meal of Kase Verenik but I will save the pictures of that for another post with the recipe.

Saturday night -- making Resurrection rolls the "easy" way. I have done this before making my own bread dough but decided for simplicity and used cresent roll dough {gasp!} Missy was thrilled to be doing "a project". I did realize that my oldest is truly getting older as he wasn't quite as excited as he used to be. {sigh}

Resurrection Morning!

Easter Basket Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's. Well, actually this year they searched for bags of candy to fill the baskets which was a bit more challenging.

Sweet Zippy and Missy

 

Our Family Picture.

I am so thankful for traditions with all of the symbolism to help instill in us the real meaning of the season. Christ died to save us -- worthless sinners, and praise God He rose again to give us eternal life!

Christ is Risen, He is Risen Indeed!