Secret Easter

Spring is coming, which means Easter is just around the corner!

A couple of years ago I was contemplating how we celebrate Easter, just in general. Church in the morning. Family gatherings in the afternoon that generally involve an Easter egg hunt. Then the day is over. Some families give their kids Easter baskets full of small toys and lots of candy.

While all of these things are GOOD, I realized we spend much for time and energy preparing and celebrating Christmas than we do Easter. Christmas is special and so much fun. The anticipation building as shopping begins. Lights everywhere. The trees being decorated. Freshly baked cookies. And of course celebrating the birth of Christ.

Easter felt a little neglected or like a second thought in comparison.

So we started a new tradition in our house. While it is still nothing compared to the output of Christmas, it is now a holiday we celebrate with great anticipation and preparation. We do Secret Easter Bunny.

Our names go in a hat, and each person picks one. Then they get that person a gift for Easter. The objective is to keep the gift a secret and see if the recipient knows who gave it to them. But I think each year everyone has figured out picked whom, so they are generally checking to see if their suspicions are right.

We let each family member decide how much they can spend and do not set a dollar amount. This allows the people that have money do what they want, but it takes the pressure of the younger kids that don’t make much money yet. And the gifts have to all fit in a standard size Easter basket. So one could fill the basket with candy or jewelry and it would be about the same amount of gifts even though the cost difference would be quite a lot.

And no. No one has received a basket full of jewelry. That would be quite the Easter basket!!

We thrift the Easter baskets which keeps that cost to a minimum. And then donate them to another thrift store after we are finished with them. This is fun, too, because it allows the giver to pick a basket they think their receiver would really like, or it can be part of a theme they are giving.

Last year, one of our daughters had a sister as their person. And they gave all food related items. Things like dried fruit, Nutella, chips. Things the person REALLY liked and could have but didn’t have to share. And most of the items were things I rarely buy. So they really enjoyed their basket for quite awhile.

What this small change has done is help us better focus on Easter and what it is that we are celebrating. It also gave us a portion of the day that is ours as a family. With church in the morning and family gatherings in the afternoon it felt like we were just checking all the boxes without actually taking time to celebrate the resurrection of Christ and celebrate the new life we have in Him.

The truth is that without Christ’s resurrection, we would have no hope. The resurrection is the one thing that makes Christianity valid. Without it, there would be no conquering death and sin. Our God would be like all the others—fake, made by man, demanding, and harsh.

Instead, we have a God who loves us, created us, and then died for us because WE messed up. His love is perfect and His mercies are new. And we celebrate those truths when we celebrate Easter.

We have life because our Lord rose from the dead!

As Easter gets closer what are you doing to prepare to celebrate? How are you going to worship your living God on this momentous Sunday?