Our Blessed Easter Weekend, Part 4.

I didn’t grow up in the most traditional family.  From year to year, we never really knew what each holiday would hold.

Will we be at Mommy’s house or Daddy’s house?  Will we go out to eat or make something at home?  Will this involve going to church?  Having family over?  Will it be scaled back or extravagant?

This might’ve been partly due to 1) visitation rights between divorced parents, 2) budget and 3) Momma’s inspiration or exhaustion.

So leading up to Easter, I had realized that if I wanted to have holiday traditions with Bennett, I’d like, for the sake of consistency, to begin them now  in spite of the fact that he likely won’t remember.

Easter is a tricky one for me.  While, yes, I love the modern, American representation of the holiday with the beautiful pastel tones, the eggs, the chicks, the lambs and bunnies, I am first and foremost celebrating the Christian meaning of Easter: Jesus’ death and resurrection.

If you haven’t noticed, the two extremes don’t seem to have much natural association with each other.  What I mean is that tying the two Easters together really seems like a stretch.  So here’s what Brian and I have decided to do (and by “Brian and I,” I mean Obsessive Square Piece): There will be one special gift or a  special basket of little gifts.  There will be an egg hunt.  There will be one significant, empty egg to by found.  This egg represents Christ’s empty tomb.  At that time, once the empty egg is found, we are reminded that we’ve never received a greater gift than Christ sacrificing himself over to death by crucifixion on our behalf for the wages of sin and then defeating the curse of death by resurrecting from the grave.  The special gift/basket is then presented to symbolize and celebrate the gift of Jesus.  On that day we eat a lamb roast to remind us that once upon a time, people used to make blood atonement for sins by sacrificing lambs, but that Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” has completed that mission once and for all to all who believe.

Thank you, Rachael Ray, for providing the most legit lamb roast recipe (complete with her momma’s mint sauce recipe) to celebrate this freedom we have!  (The “yum-o” factor was confirmed by our friends, Chris and Bree, who joined our little celebration!)

So being that my baby is only five months old, our version of the Easter tradition was quite simple.  First, we read a children’s book about Easter.

Then came the “egg hunt.”  I had filled a few Easter eggs with colorful, crinkly tissue paper to hold ol’ Benny-boo’s interest.  Brian and I opened a few for Bennett, being sure to rustle the paper and mesmerize him before eventually presenting the special, empty egg.

Once that egg was opened, we gifted Bennett with his first bead maze (complete with ever-so-brilliant suction cups on the bottom!).  He had a death grip on that thing!

A fabulous Easter!