Tuesday, April 6, 2010

What I Learned from Easter Sunday

Lesson #1. I'm a terrible picture taker... I didn't take a one. Yes, the kids were cute and I will have to recreate that morning, "outfit-wise," sometime soon so that I can snap their picture. In my defense, Sunday is my "work day" and I head to church early in the morning with a few of the four while Steven comes later with the other two. So the kids were not all together, dressed and ready until they met in the church hallways (busy church hallways)... and then they weren't all together again until 4:00 that afternoon, and by then Isaiah and Huston's shirts were christened with salsa and remnants of their mexican lunch while Avery was in a completely different outfit... have I given a sufficient explanation by now as to why I'm a bad chronicler of my children's lives?

Lesson #2. I'm no fun. Ok, I'm going to admit something here that is very shocking... come a bit closer, cuz I'm going to whisper it... we don't do easter baskets. This year, I had to explain to my 8 and 6 year old who the Easter Bunny is... and I'm not talking in the sense that they have believed in him up until this time and it was time for the big talk... this is just a tradition that this pretty non-tradition accepting family has not done. And really I think I personally remember receiving an easter basket once when I was a kid. This is not to say that my parents didn't do the Easter basket thing, I just plain don't remember. I do remember that we got up in the middle of the night so that we could attend sunrise services and eat breakfast with the church family... and that was always fun, well the eating part was, I'm sure I was a grumpy sunrise service attender.

Not only do we not do the easter baskets, but we don't even color the eggs. I know, I know. I'm terrible. And I am not against these traditions in any way, I'm just a horrid holiday facilitator.

But then again it's really nice to have a holiday that is pretty much just about church. And at this point in my kids' lives, they either a.) don't know what their missing, b.) are content with a small holiday celebration, or c.) ok, this one only applies to my oldest one, but they get that this holiday is about something much deeper than bunnies and eggs and candy... ok, I may be stretching it concerning the candy, but he really was looking forward to being a part of the easter services.

Lesson # 3. Now before I make my whole two blog readers out there think that I am a determined holiday purist and the epitome of strong spiritual leadership within the home, I will tell you right now that we did do an easter egg hunt in our front yard... and the kids opened their plastic eggs to find candy and even dollar bills thanks to the Grandmas. And even after a day of church and family without much of the secular fanfare that easter brings, my 4-year old still manages to exclaim, "happy egg day!" to our guests as they were leaving our house after dinner. So you see, just about anything will try to rob Easter of it's true meaning, even innocent little candies stuffed into plastic eggs. ;)

All kidding aside, I hope that you all had a very Christ filled Easter weekend, because seriously, I don't know what on earth would be worth celebrating without His ultimate Easter gift and sacrifice.

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