This is the first year that Daniel will be really able to "get into" and enjoy Easter so we have been thinking more about what traditions we want to start as we celebrate Easter! I am so thankful for the many ideas out there in blog land! Here are some that I think we are going to try this year!
1. We did these Resurrection Eggs last year and Daniel had a great time with it. We will do these again this year. You start 12 days before Easter and read a short portion of scripture and open up an egg each day...the eggs have little "toys" in them that relate to that days aspect of the Easter story. Daniel really enjoyed our advent calendar this past year and I'm sure he will love this again this year!
2. I have always heard about Hot Cross Buns and even remember the little jingle, "Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns"! But I don't remember ever having one. So I think as a fun baking project I'll make these with Daniel. He loves to help me in the kitchen so this will be a great way to involve him in helping me and a great teaching time about the cross. I found this recipe that look good.
3. I remember reading in Noel Piper's book and in it one of the things she did was make a tomb and use pipe cleaners to make "people" and use it all to act out the events of the Easter story. I think Daniel will really love this one...he has such a great imagination and he knows how to play really well! I like this idea because it's simple and doesn't cost a lot of money!
4. I have gotten most of my ideas from this blog and one of the things that this family does is have lamb for the Easter meal instead of ham....I haven't ever thought of this but I really like this idea. I really like lamb and we rarely have it since it is quite expensive, so this would be a treat and another way of giving us a tangible reminder about Christ being the Lamb of God.
5. I really also like her idea for the egg hunt. I'll just copy what she said cause it's really good!
"Easter egg hunts need not be about a bunny! They can also be a symbol of our relationship to our Savior. God tells us to seek him, just as those little children will be ernestly seeking those eggs: ”You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) I have also thought it would be so nice to add little messages inside the children’s eggs with messages about God’s sweetness: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103 ESV); the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. (Psalm 19:9; Psalm 19:10-11 ESV); etc… The candy is an excellent picture to your child of how wonderful a relationship with Jesus is… it is even better than candy!"
6. Making Resurrection Rolls will also be a tradition we start! Daniel will have such a fun time making these....and eating them will be great too. I can just imagine how he will have a blast putting the marshmallows in the rolls, covering the roll all up and then discovering the marshmallow is gone and it's left an empty space.....we'll get to talk lots about the empty tomb with this one!
7. I found this printable and I think I'll make a memory match game with it. Daniel has started to learn how to play the memory match game so this works for us at this stage.
8. Although Daniel is not into coloring all that much, he will do it some. So I will probably print off some coloring pages from here and http://ministry-to-children.com/easter-coloring-pages/ for him to do this year...I don't know that we will make this a tradition, probably just something for the kids when they are young.
9. Here is a printable that I'll probably put up in the dining room.
10. And last but not least at all is that we will be reading the Easter story from the scriptures. I think this will be the most important tradition that we start. It is tempting to read just from a children's Bible because it's easy to think that children will understand it better from that...but what a disservice to our kids to only read from a children's storybook Bible.
This site also has some great ideas...I don't think we will be trying anymore than what is listed above but maybe in years to come we'll try some of these.
Showing posts with label Traditions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Traditions. Show all posts
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Monday, December 28, 2009
Birthday Traditions
First of all, thanks mom for watching Daniel so Joshua and I could go on a date while we were in Texas!
While on our date, Joshua and I started talking about birthday traditions. Daniel's birthday is coming up soon and we have not thought about what kind of traditions we want to start. I read Noel Piper's book about family traditions and treasuring Christ in those traditions but that was a while ago so I don't really remember specifics!
We both decided that I should look at that chapter again and we can talk about this topic again. But we did continue our discussion. Some of the things we talked about were what is the point that we want to get across in the celebration of birthdays? > It seemed like that was a good question to start with because then that would drive what we decide to do. We decided that we want it to be a celebration of the person (kinda obvious!) and a way to treasure the gospel and Christ. So with that, our next question was what are things that we can do to make it a celebration of the person, but make sure they don't think the world revolves around them? What things can you do honor Christ or make much of the gospel in a birthday celebration?
We also talked about the importance of having traditions because it gives stability and expectation for Daniel and any future kids that we have. We are probably going to be living overseas and might have a somewhat varied schedule, so we think having traditions would help give continuity to a child's life. So we want whatever we do for birthdays to be something that can be easily replicated with multiple children in varied settings.
We don't like the idea of giving other siblings a present on the birthday of another sibling as seems to be the current trend. It seems like it would be a valuable lesson to teach the children who's birthday it is not, to rejoice for their sibling who is getting gifts and having attention given to them.
And we didn't get much further than this. We are having a hard time coming up with tangible things you can do and not just say that will give a birthday celebration more meaning than only the celebration of the persons life. So we decided to ask our parents and others what they did/thought on this subject. So if anyone actually reads this and has traditions that they do, or ideas they have heard of for birthday traditions we'd love to hear them. We are specifically looking for ideas about how to have a gospel centered, Christ exalting birthday celebration.
While on our date, Joshua and I started talking about birthday traditions. Daniel's birthday is coming up soon and we have not thought about what kind of traditions we want to start. I read Noel Piper's book about family traditions and treasuring Christ in those traditions but that was a while ago so I don't really remember specifics!
We both decided that I should look at that chapter again and we can talk about this topic again. But we did continue our discussion. Some of the things we talked about were what is the point that we want to get across in the celebration of birthdays? > It seemed like that was a good question to start with because then that would drive what we decide to do. We decided that we want it to be a celebration of the person (kinda obvious!) and a way to treasure the gospel and Christ. So with that, our next question was what are things that we can do to make it a celebration of the person, but make sure they don't think the world revolves around them? What things can you do honor Christ or make much of the gospel in a birthday celebration? We also talked about the importance of having traditions because it gives stability and expectation for Daniel and any future kids that we have. We are probably going to be living overseas and might have a somewhat varied schedule, so we think having traditions would help give continuity to a child's life. So we want whatever we do for birthdays to be something that can be easily replicated with multiple children in varied settings.
We don't like the idea of giving other siblings a present on the birthday of another sibling as seems to be the current trend. It seems like it would be a valuable lesson to teach the children who's birthday it is not, to rejoice for their sibling who is getting gifts and having attention given to them.
And we didn't get much further than this. We are having a hard time coming up with tangible things you can do and not just say that will give a birthday celebration more meaning than only the celebration of the persons life. So we decided to ask our parents and others what they did/thought on this subject. So if anyone actually reads this and has traditions that they do, or ideas they have heard of for birthday traditions we'd love to hear them. We are specifically looking for ideas about how to have a gospel centered, Christ exalting birthday celebration.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
We here in Texas enjoyed a rare thing-SNOW!!! Yesterday my dad got up saying, "It's going to snow." Joshua and I thought he was crazy since the day before we had thrown Frisbee in 70 degree weather! No, he insisted, "It's going to snow." Thirty minutes later what we saw out the window proved him right! It snowed just about all day. What a treat for us to have a white Christmas.
We enjoyed a Christmas Eve service at Hillcrest Baptist-my parents church. Daniel enjoyed the music and playing with the candle before it was lit. It was great to sit down and think about the greatest gift of all- Jesus Christ. We are amazed at God's gift to us, that he would give His Son to live on earth and then die for our sins. Praise God for the resurrection too!
A fun family tradition that we introduced Daniel to after the church service was opening one Christmas present. This Christmas Eve present is always PJs! The PJs are to be worn that night and the next morning we open our presents in them! Daniel enjoyed the paper! We also had some chicken noodle soup and a tradition from Joshua'
s family--onion sandwiches!
Daniel in his new PJs...they were nice and fuzzy and warm!
Daniel got up at about 7:15, so we all got up and started making breakfast. After breakfast we read Daniel's advent Christmas story and then started opening presents. Daniel made it about halfway through the opening of presents and then went to bed for a couple of hours, during which we continued opening presents and then started putting finishing touches on food!
Gregory and I made dressing balls and green bean casserole. We also had turkey,ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Yum-o!
Grandma Rannels joined us for lunch. She really enjoyed Daniel's antics!
The rest of the afternoon was spent by various people taking naps (Daniel included!), playing Rock Band, watching some home videos circa 1987 (gotta love those clothing styles), playing games and chatting with each other and other family members who aren't here.
It's been a great Christmas day and we are blessed. In the words of Dad Greever, "being together is the best part!"
We here in Texas enjoyed a rare thing-SNOW!!! Yesterday my dad got up saying, "It's going to snow." Joshua and I thought he was crazy since the day before we had thrown Frisbee in 70 degree weather! No, he insisted, "It's going to snow." Thirty minutes later what we saw out the window proved him right! It snowed just about all day. What a treat for us to have a white Christmas.
We enjoyed a Christmas Eve service at Hillcrest Baptist-my parents church. Daniel enjoyed the music and playing with the candle before it was lit. It was great to sit down and think about the greatest gift of all- Jesus Christ. We are amazed at God's gift to us, that he would give His Son to live on earth and then die for our sins. Praise God for the resurrection too!
A fun family tradition that we introduced Daniel to after the church service was opening one Christmas present. This Christmas Eve present is always PJs! The PJs are to be worn that night and the next morning we open our presents in them! Daniel enjoyed the paper! We also had some chicken noodle soup and a tradition from Joshua'
s family--onion sandwiches!
Daniel in his new PJs...they were nice and fuzzy and warm!
Daniel got up at about 7:15, so we all got up and started making breakfast. After breakfast we read Daniel's advent Christmas story and then started opening presents. Daniel made it about halfway through the opening of presents and then went to bed for a couple of hours, during which we continued opening presents and then started putting finishing touches on food!
Gregory and I made dressing balls and green bean casserole. We also had turkey,ham, rolls, cranberry sauce, potatoes, and pumpkin pie. Yum-o!
Grandma Rannels joined us for lunch. She really enjoyed Daniel's antics!
The rest of the afternoon was spent by various people taking naps (Daniel included!), playing Rock Band, watching some home videos circa 1987 (gotta love those clothing styles), playing games and chatting with each other and other family members who aren't here.
It's been a great Christmas day and we are blessed. In the words of Dad Greever, "being together is the best part!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)