Have you ever wondered why we celebrate the way we do? For instance, why have stores been decked out in pastel colors with pictures of eggs and bunnies for weeks? Why are millions of us going to give our kids baskets of candy this weekend? Why do even more people have a huge feast on Sunday, whether they profess faith in Jesus (arguably the reason for the Easter celebration) or not?
Most of us just keep doing what we’ve always done, but a little more each year, without ever questioning the reason. I’ve been guilty of this too. For many of us it’s not until a 4 year old asks why we’re making them take a picture with a scary 6 foot tall rabbit that we stop dead in our tracks and wonder, ‘Why am I doing this?’
My point here is not to bash all Easter traditions. I love to celebrate with my family and church on Easter and our traditions have become events we all look forward to each year. However, sometimes those traditions need to be tweaked to better reflect what we say we value. This came to life for us a few years back when I was trying to weed all the extra sugar out of our house so the treats we shared together were actually special. We’d been doing so well…and then I brought a truck load of candy into the house that took weeks for the kids to eat. And I was sneaking pieces right and left. I had one of those, ‘Why am I doing this?’ moments. I realized I gave my kids Easter baskets because that’s what I’d grown up with, and there was nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t really helping us celebrate what we believe is important on that day and it was actively working against a health goal for our family. As I started to look at the rest of our holidays I realized the easy way to celebrate was just to throw sweets at people, but when I asked our kids what they loved most about each holiday it was the shared experiences that stood out to them. They loved the candy, don’t get me wrong, but it was things like visiting grandparents, watching certain movies together and a yearly drive around town in their PJs to look at Christmas lights that immediately popped into their minds.
As we get ready for Easter you have the chance to ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Are your traditions in line with your values? If not, how could you tweak them to better fit your family? For us, we wanted to avoid the sugar rush on Sunday morning, but still have a special way to celebrate the day. Our solution has become known as ‘The Great Easter Egg War.’ For a couple weeks before Easter I’ll crack our eggs on the end so I can shake the egg out and end up with a shell that just has a hole at the top..takes a little extra time, but it’s worth it because when we’ve saved up 7 cartons of egg shells (1 for each of us) I get the kids to cut up a bunch of confetti and they stuff all 84 of those eggs! On Easter morning we’ll meet on the driveway, cartons in hand, and run around cracking eggs on each other and letting the confetti fly! It disintegrates with the first rain and we’re in the country so no one cares that our yard is rainbow-colored for a little while. It’s a blast and it’s become one of our favorite traditions each year. And just for the record, our kids aren’t totally deprived of Easter candy…we all enjoy a Cadbury egg together. 🙂
If you’re still curious where some of our American Easter traditions came from, take a peek here:
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/easter-symbols
If you’d like to be a part of a group of women who are trying to be intentional about lining their lives up with their health goals we’d love to have you join us for our Spring Cleaning for Your Health Challenge, April 2-15. Registration is open and the cost is…FREE. 🙂 Click on the link below to join or ask for more info…
https://goo.gl/forms/izyGvqKghoMZj7fi1
