This week at Target, a nice woman asked Elijah if the East bunny was coming to his house. He looked at me with a furrowed brow, then back at her before yelling "WHAT?!". He acted offended that she would ask something so strange and the lady was offended that I hadn't bought into the East bunny thing like normal parents do.
Elijah's response was perfect: "Easter....I know what East is reeaaaalllly about. It's about Jesus dying on the cross but he comes back to life and he gives ME life! Yeah! It's so so so so wonderful!"
The lady was taken aback, then said "Sooo, I guess you're goin' to church, then?" Just to make sure my children aren't raised completely outside of their culture, we participated in a sweet little impromptu East egg hunt with friends. The girls quickly gathered as many eggs as they could, but my boys stopped to open each egg at a time, eating all it's contents before moving on.
Ain't nothin' better than dying eggs, pant-less.
Lazzy was just excited to play with/eat his hard boiled egg.
Shells and all. Yum.
Elijah and I were pretty serious about our color choices. We worked hard to make our eggs beautiful.
The best part was having daddy home with us on a Saturday afternoon. It's been years since that has happened!
Tomorrow, we will go to church to worship our risen Lord and savior. Then, the family will visit and put on a little church service at a nursing home in our neighborhood. Looking forward to worshiping in different languages with people from different nations and very different age brackets.
"He is risen! He is risen indeed!!"
That's pretty perfect. We don't do the Easter Bunny or Santa. We have not said much of anything about the Easter Bunny but we just tell them Santa (or St. Nicholas) was a generous man and so the "Santa" we see is another reminder for us to be generous. But we certainly don't give him credit for gifts or for being any part of the reason to celebrate. Anyway, that to say, I think people get so caught up in making it "fun" that they don't see how it can be fun celebrating the real reasons for these holidays. But, I think if Áine were asked if Santa or the Easter bunny were coming she would say yes, not because she really thinks they are gonna show up but because she knows that is the answer they are looking for (she is totally like me). I love the Eli at not even 4 speaks out the truth like that. I pray that never goes away for him and as he grows he is equipped with many loving ways to inform people of the real meanings of the holidays.
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