We're going to be in the car on Easter Sunday, so we decided to have some of our Easter fun this weekend.
We dyed eggs. I love dyeing eggs. (Which is kind of out of character for me. But there is something about all the colors and the way the shells absorb them and how even the imperfections and cracks are pretty and the whole process is like magic for the kids and we're celebrating spring and isn't that a wonderful thing.) I prefer using food coloring to the little alka-seltzer-type pills you buy in those kits. You have more control over the colors--and you can do a larger variety of them. Plus, the kids enjoy squeezing out the drops and counting along as we create different colors. (I think Not Martha's colors are better than the color "recipes" printed on the food dye boxes.)
What did we do with all of those Easter eggs? Hunt them, of course.
I love Easter.
I do Halloween because everyone else does and it makes my kids happy. I could do without Valentine's Day, but I grudgingly do the minimum. I do not acknowledge St. Patrick's Day.
But over the years I have grown to love celebrations of Easter: the dyed eggs, the baskets, the new clothes, the jelly beans and Cadbury chocolates. It's a celebration of spring and rebirth! And, behind the more secular traditions, there lies the most important event in the history of the Universe: the Atonement of Jesus Christ. If that is not worth celebrating, then what is? Other holidays can feel hollow beneath the decorations and candy. But not Easter. The Peeps and stiff new church clothes provide another reason, a special occasion, so that "we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ . . . that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins."
What we do for Easter varies from year to year. Usually there are new clothes and dyed eggs. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. But we always talk of Christ. We teach of that sacred last week before His death. And we testify to our children that He lives again. So that they will know too.
Tomorrow at Family Home Evening Mary would like to teach us about the Resurrection of the Savior.
I love Easter.
