Religious Moms, I have a question about Easter...
dana316
member
How do you plan to/have you explained the Easter season to your LO?
Caroline is still so little, but I want to explain to her about Ash Wednesday, Lent, Good Friday, and Easter...but I don't want to scare her too much, and honestly, I'm not sure how much she will understand.
She is conversational at this point, and has a tremendous vocabulary...but at age 2, she's no where near ready to understand the death and resurrection.
I just know that I can't have her thinking that Easter is all about bunnies and eggs, you know? I want to talk to her about the truth, but I'm not sure what words to use.
Any thoughts? I'm pretty sure she won't understand much, if any, of it this year, but next year she will...and I want to start telling her age appropriate things now.
Re: Religious Moms, I have a question about Easter...
Last year, when Ava was 2, we really just talked about how Easter was a day to celebrate Jesus, and we left it at that.
This year we will go into a little bit more, how Jesus saved us and we celebrate him. I know she will go over this in school as well, and I'm interested to see where they go with it, since I know it will be age-appropriate.
Isabel still does not understand but, I bought her a book last year and I thought it did a good job of getting the jist across without being scary.
This is the book...I think (like 98% sure, to lazy to get up and check:)~), Isabel redecorated the cover a long time ago
https://compare.ebay.com/like/320847194156?var=lv<yp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar&_lwgsi=y&cbt=y
We've talked up shrove Tuesday and how we will eat pancakes as a way to talk about doing without during Lent, and how we have lots to eat, but others don't, so we'll be giving up some of the money we spend on treats and putting it in our Lent bank.
We'll use Ash Wed as a way to discuss Baptism (cross on the head) and how Jesus loved us so much, we went through a lot of pain for us.
We'll talk about how people thought Jesus was dead, but because he's so cool he went to heaven, and the empty tomb.
We put lots of focus on Maundy Thursday, foot washing, and the like. Then pray like crazy through Sunday. We skip Good Friday with her - too confusing.
I have some resources, let me check and see if any are 2 year old appropriate.
Oh and we are making Empty Tomb snacks!
https://catholicicing.com/2011/04/meaningful-easter-activity-for-kids-empty-tomb-snack/
I haven't even really thought about it. We'll go with bunnies and eggs for now. As she gets older we'll focus on the Resurrection and get into the Passion when she's old enough to get it.
***Twin fraternal girls born at 35w6d in 12/2008***
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Us too.However Nicholas has never even had an Easter Basket and has no clue there is an Easter Bunny.
I love Catholicicing for craft ideas as pp mentioned! I am hoping to do some of the Lenten crafts this year.
When he was 2 I don't think I really talked much about Lent with him, but I do take him to Ash Wednesday Mass and as many Stations of the Cross services as I can tolerate. (As you can imagine it is very often an exercise in futility!) I haven't taken him to any Holy Thursday or Good Friday services yet (at least that I can remember) because they are too close to bedtime.
We have had several deaths in the family since he was born, so I talk about it often enough with him that I figure he is kind of familiar with the concept. So mostly at Easter I talk about how much Jesus loved us that He died for us and He is in heaven with God.
I do Easter baskets on Easter Sunday, but I don't talk about the bunny too much. Then on Easter Monday I have an egg hunt in our garden. With Mass, relatives, and 2 big meals, it's too much for one day. Plus I feel like I keep the secular part off of Sunday.
We do the whole Easter story but instead of saying dead we go with gone. " we are sad because Jesus is gone, he had to go to save us, we thought he couldn't come back but then he did ". That angle works pretty well for us. It's telling the truth but sparing her the gory details. She's rather sensitive so it's best this way.
E
we also need to deal with passover, so we work that into the story as well, how the Last Supper was a seder, and that Jesus was Jewish, and his easter story is the beginning of Mommy's religion, but he celebrated as Daddy does.
this book is good in that it discusses the eggs and etc, and how it is fun, but the day is more about god's son. https://www.amazon.com/What-Easter-Michelle-Medlock-Adams/dp/0824966392/ref=pd_sim_b_12
I also like this one: https://www.amazon.com/My-Easter-Basket-True-Story/dp/0784713561/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1329718770&sr=1-1 it takes all the colors found in the basket and related them to the Easter Story (the green is palms, etc)