Forming Simple Easter Traditions

Easter Traditions

Easter is a big religious holiday for christians, celebrating the resurrection of christ after his crucifixion and death. It wasn’t until later in life that I got to learn about the Easter Bunny dropping off eggs, the baskets filled with chocolate and all that good stuff.

As a little girl growing up in Africa, we had no Easter traditions in our home. To me that was normal,since non of my friends had any. On Palm Sunday, we all went to church. My mom dressed us in our princess looking dresses that we wore on christmas eve and we were more than happy showing off our dresses for the second time. After church service, my mom would give each of us a soda or more and some cookies to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We then finished the day off with a nice dinner. No easter bunny, no colorful eggs and defiantly no chocolates.

As I am married now and have my own little family, I am making it a priority, to form simple traditions like an easter tradition, that will stay with us. In Austria where I live, Traditionally, the Catholics make large bouquets from pussy willows ( Palmkätzchen) and  decorate them with ribbons hanged on a hollow egg-shell. This is taken to church and blessed to celebrate the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem. The reason behind using pussy willows according to Wikipedia, is to replace palm branches , which do not grow both in Europe and America.

As a Catholic, I love this tradition and have adopted it in my home. My older child and I, both enjoy hanging our eggs up on the willows.

Since my older child loves anything craft related, instead of buying already colored Easter eggs from the store, we color the eggs ourselves, as well as making our  own fake grass for our basket.

Using my imagination, although am not that creative kind of person, I have made this simple Easter Count down frame. This is to kind of mimic Advent calendar at Christmas time, only this is done on a paper. I find this exciting because really, any child that knows about the Easter Bunny, gets excited when the time is approaching and can’t wait for that day.

In addition, I have found fun projects like baking, making and parceling our own little gifts for our neighbors so much fun. This year, on my easter tradition list, I added homemade marshmallows to give it a more holiday feel.

I can’t tell you how many times my oldest child gave me kisses and told me how am the best mom in the world. It makes me really happy seeing how she love these traditions that am forming in our home. I can not wait for my youngest ( who is 1-year-old) to get a bit older and be able to join the fun. My intention is to have an Easter Tradition that my children can pass on to their children as well.

On Easter Sunday, we will then dig into the Easter Egg search. Here, we look for Eggs and sweets hidden by the Easter Bunny. At the end of the day, we then celebrate the resurrection of Jesus with a nice dinner, featuring a leg of Lamb.

Did you have Easter traditions while growing up? and do you practice any with your own family. Let me know in the comment section.