I remember two years ago in General Conference when Elder Stevenson invited us to make Easter more of a celebration in our families and in the world. I was/am convinced that his invitation is the coolest Prophetic counsel ever! A Prophet, Seer, and Revelator–who knows stuff–is essentially saying “Elisabeth, it’s probably about time you got serious about rejoicing and celebrating and having lots of fun as you remember how Jesus Christ saved you from endless damnation, and therefore you have ALL the hope you could ever need for progress and joy and love for all eternity.”

How could I say “no”?!

So, we have been trying to up our Easter game ever since then. And then–this year–when I saw the video invitation from President Oaks I got even more excited about it!

Last year, I got some decorations, like an Easter Creche; some books, like Holy Week family activity books; and probably some other things (I felt like it was a lot last year; but right now I can’t remember that much…) and we tried to make Easter a season, rather than just a day. The books I have found (then and now) are mostly about how to observe Holy Week. Last year we followed along with some of the activities in the Holy Week books, and we hung up our printable eggs that each symbolize something about Easter, and then we did the same things we have always done–like epic Easter hunts and springy clothes for church on Easter Sunday.

In Elder Stevenson’s talk, he mentioned hearkening to our celebrations of Christmastime as we try to reinvigorate the celebration of the earth’s most significant, valuable, far-reaching event. When I compare our last year’s Easter festivities with those of Christmas, I can see that we’ve got a long way to go.

And I WANT to go!

As I started thinking about this year’s Easter celebrations, I really wanted to embrace the magic that permeates the Christmas season and infuse it into Easter. After all, “The Christmas Spirit is the Christ Spirit”(Thomas S. Monson) and Easter is even more about Christ than Christmas is. As I considered what makes Christmas magical to me, I thought of a few different things.

• MUSIC!!! I love how it means a lot when we start playing Christmas music in the house. I want to have Easter music that gets us in the mood and fills us with joy! And I love the idea of having special concerts to attend at Easter. I was more than slightly disappointed by the lack of a Tabernacle Choir Easter Concert this year.
• Beautiful decorations all over! I love them in stores and schools and everywhere you look; but I can only make choices for my house and I recognize that. But I like how at Christmas we go ALL OUT with the decorating and the whole house is transformed into a winter wonderland with beautiful representations of the baby Jesus. How magical could a spring wonderland be for Easter?! With similarly beautiful representations of our risen Lord.
• Fun activities as a family–like making gingerbread houses or going to the Festival of Trees at Christmas. I want to have traditions that we do each Easter that we look forward to like those.
• Get-togethers with friends and family. I love the ward, work, and family Christmas parties we have each year, and I would be thrilled to have those same fun gatherings at Easter. I feel like our extended families do get together at Easter, and I truly do love it! But what about some ward parties? Or friend parties? I don’t want it to become overwhelming for anybody; but I feel like celebrations just feel so much more celebratory when everyone comes together to celebrate (celebrationally 😉).
• Festive foods! I love that there are foods that are associated with seasons–like pumpkin everything in the fall, and peppermint and gingerbread and eggnog at Christmas, and BBQs in the summer. I would love it if we had Easter foods that we get excited to eat during the Easter season.
• Reading Scriptures. I love that for my whole life, not a year has gone by that I haven’t read the Christmas story in Luke 2. I also love that there are so many references to different parts of that sacred story all over during December. I would love to get into the habit of reading the accounts of the Savior’s Resurrection in the Gospels and also the account of Christ appearing to the Nephites in 3 Nephi. (#greatestEasterstoryevertold)
• Time off work and school. I LOVE that there is a two week break from school for Christmas. It is that two weeks away from responsibility that makes it more reasonable for us to do all these other fun things. Plus, the fact that school (and, to a lesser extent, work) ceases for the holiday emphasizes just how important it is. I have noticed that if Easter isn’t too late, our school district’s spring-break will frequently coincide with it–either the week before or the week after. But (and again, I know that I have no control over what other people do), wouldn’t it be magical to be able to always count on a break to be with family and friends to celebrate Easter?

This is most of what I have come up with, and I think it sounds downright dreamy! But in creating this dreamy wish-list, I have also seen that there are several hurtles in the way. Here are some that I’ve thought of.

• The biggest thing I’ve thought of that feels like a hindrance to making Easter the new Christmas is that with Christmas we are all benefiting from hundreds and even thousands of years of traditions. Or even if it’s just a couple of generations worth of traditions that make your Christmas celebration what it is, it still has a solid base from which to build upon. Easter has always been just a day to me. I remember when Josh and I had our first Easter away from home, we could only name one or two traditions we remember being associated with it. And, frankly, we have mostly just relied on those one-day type traditions ever since. I think it’s hard to take Easter from bare-bones to full-fledged Christmas-level glory in one year. Or even in a handful of years. I think this is going to be a very gradual process, perhaps even over generations. But hopefully having a goal in mind (see above) and making little efforts each year will make each step of the journey something joyful.
• Another big hurtle I have encountered in our efforts to make Easter its own season is timing. You may or may not have noticed that we have celebrated several birthdays this spring. (All five of our children have their birthdays between March 10 and May 7.) Also, there’s fun little holidays like Mar10 Day and Pi Day and St. Patrick’s Day and April Fool’s Day. Also, there’s sports and school and lessons and work conferences. Life just doesn’t revolve around Easter like it seems to revolve around Christmas. And even if we change a lot of what we do as a family around Easter, it is unlikely to change other organizations’ schedules. Plus, it is tricky to make really solid traditions around Easter because of the fact that Easter changes when it is every year. Last year Easter came nearly a full month sooner than it did this year. That changes a lot of what you can reliably plan to do each year.
• Also, availability of resources in your celebrations. I would truly love to decorate to the nines to celebrate the Savior and His resurrection; but there’s really not a ton of good options for doing so. When I have looked for Christ-centered Easter decorations, I mostly find a lot of crosses (which I find rather interesting seeing as Easter is a celebration that Jesus Christ is no longer dead 🤷🏼‍♀️). Other than that you’ve got bunnies and eggs, which are great, but still not in as much abundant variety as Christmas decorations. It’s just a little harder to feel enveloped in the Easter spirit when the options are so limited. And I would say it isn’t just decorations that are limited in amount and variety, there are also fewer Easter songs and fewer Easter events and fewer Easter fill-in-the-blank. The pickings can feel very slim when you’re trying to enhance your personal Easter celebrations.

But what are those when we’ve got 1. A Prophetic admonition to make this happen. (#1Nephi3:7) 2. As long as we could ever need to make a full transformation. and especially 3. Our knowledge that Jesus truly is the Christ and that He really did conquer death and sin and pain for you and me personally! Just letting that astonishing reality sink in makes it seem like the only natural thing to do to celebrate that miraculous day from 2,000 years ago!

So now, I’m going to share what we did this Easter. We have not reached full-Easter-season status yet; but we did make an effort and were richly rewarded with greater hope and joy in our Savior, Jesus Christ!

Decorations

I have wanted to start a tradition of when we decorate for Easter. We always start decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, and so I’m trying to make the day after St. Patrick’s Day when we start decorating for Easter. Here’s what I did for this year.

I opted for our Easter creche on the mantel, with Jesus as the very center! I also added a copy of The Living Christ and some springy stuff. As the decoration for our coffee table I tried to go for an Easter basket vibe. This was the site of most of our eggs and bunnies.

My favorite acquisition this year was these triptych pictures of Jesus emerging from the dark tomb walking into the light of the shining sun. We hung it over the hutch in the main entryway, and I love how anyone who comes to our house can see it! I always want everybody who knows me to have no doubt that I worship Jesus Christ as my Savior. And what’s great is that it’s pretty well stuck where it is and so the reminder of our resurrected Savior gets to be a permanent part of our entryway.

For the hutch itself, I decided to use the Easter books we have, especially since we weren’t really getting into them much until Holy Week. Plus we have some fun springy elements.

Activities

I don’t want it to always be this way; but our activities mostly occurred during Holy Week. And I guess my kids had caught the vision of the joy of really celebrating Jesus’ resurrection because they were all totally stoked for Holy Week!

For Palm Sunday, our family got together with my sisters’ families at Kathryn’s house. Kathryn made us a super delicious dinner and then had prepared some really cool activities. We all made paper palm fronds and then reenacted the Lord’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Kathryn told/read us the story from the scriptures and then we waved our palm fronds and shouted hosanna as Fay–who had the honor of acting as the donkey who carried Jesus–walked through our mini throng of people carrying a picture of Jesus. The whole reenactment took sub 30 seconds. But it was fun for everybody and certainly helped us get in the Easter spirit!

Kathryn also made this cool snack mix where each different ingredient symbolized something from the Savior’s life and ministry. My favorite part of the snack mix was getting to hear Kathryn teach her children and mine about the Savior as she added each ingredient, and to feel the depth and sincerity of her love for Jesus Christ. I wish you all could have been there.

Kathryn actually had a ton of cool things she had been doing with her own family during the Easter season that we got to share in, and they were all inspiring! You should all probably follow Kathryn on social and demand that she share all her wonderful Easter ideas.

Monday of Holy Week we talked about the Savior cleansing the temple. In honor of His cleansing of the temple, we each tried to think of something in our house or life that we could cleanse that would make it easier for us to feel the Spirit. As you might imagine, this idea had mixed reception. But I think it ultimately did make a positive difference. Then, for family party, we went to the grounds around the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and talked about why Jesus spent His time in the temple and why He wants us to spend time there. It was fun to see that lots of people were doing something similar that evening.

Then Tuesday through Thursday our crazy-packed life of after school activities recommenced. And, we really didn’t do much. We didn’t read the books. We didn’t do the suggested activities. We just lived normal life for those days. But, what do you do?

When I first started getting excited about Easter plans in March, I had this idea that we could make Good Friday a really special day by keeping the kids home from school and trying to do Christ-centered activities. And I feel like my efforts and plans were really blessed and magnified because it did turn out as a nice day. We played catch up in our Holy Week books and talked about the different things Jesus did leading up to His crucifixion and resurrection, and we had a great discussion (well, at least the three older kids and I did) about what it all really means for us today. Later, while I was working in the kitchen and Bianca was at preschool (because she had an Easter party she didn’t want to miss) the other four kids watched the Prince of Egypt and we talked a little bit about the symbolism of the Passover and how it all points to Jesus Christ.

Food

Good Friday was really the only day I made anything Eastery to eat. But I was really excited that I got to make something I have always known about, but never knew was totally symbolic of Easter: Hot Cross Buns.

The Wikipedia article on Hot Cross Buns talks about how they are an Easter tradition with the cross symbolizing (you guessed it) the cross where Jesus was crucified, the spices inside symbolizing the herbs used to anoint His body, and sometimes orange peels are used to symbolize the bitterness of the cup Jesus drank on our behalf. They were fun to make and also yummy!

We also had our Jerusalem Dinner where we ate things that Jesus may have eaten, or that are middle-eastern, or that could remind us of the Savior.

We had lamb-burgers and talked again about the Passover and Jesus as the Lamb of God. We had dried figs and talked about the Savior cursing the fig tree that was symbolic of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The kids’ favorite part was that we had grape juice.

Bianca also had an idea that she wanted to do all week that we finally did for a snack on Friday morning. She wanted to have bread and water and remember the Sacrament. I kind of pushed off the idea for the first several days because I want to make sure that everything we do is in keeping with the sacredness of these things. But on Friday, I realized that Bianca’s heart was 100% pure and that we could have a snack of bread and water to remember the Sacrament and do it respectfully. And it turned out great. As we ate our bread and drank our water the kids wanted to read the verses in the Book of Mormon that have the Sacrament prayers. So we did, and we talked about the Sacrament and the Savior. And it really was lovely. Plus, the bread was really yummy.

See, I told you my efforts were magnified! (#1Nephi3:7again)

Parties

On Saturday, we got together with the Monsons for a delicious dinner and their traditional Easter hunt. The kids had a blast finding the stuff with their names on them as well as the loads of candy and the eggs filled with money! And of course everything is more fun with cousins and Grandma!

On Sunday after church we had our nuclear family Easter hunt in our back yard which Josh ensured was just as epic as the one at Grandma’s house. The kids were delighted to do the whole thing over again!

We also had delicious food made by Josh all day! I had run out of ideas after Good Friday, so Josh made sure we had an awesome Easter day by making us a super yummy breakfast casserole with chocolate milk, bagel sandwiches for lunch, and homemade country fried steak with potatoes and gravy and salad and peas for dinner. It was seriously all SO GOOD!

And Grandpa Lynn came to visit that evening as well! And the Easter Bunny himself couldn’t have brought more excitement to the kids.

Church

We had a great time at church! My one regret is that I didn’t greet people with “He is Risen” as much as I wanted to. I am REALLY hoping that becomes a widespread tradition, because it is way cool!

Our family was lucky to be very involved in the meeting. Josh led the primary children (including all of our kids but Fay) in their special Easter Song, Because. Josh and I were both part of the choir numbers. And Carter and Portia got to give talks! They both did such a great job sharing what Jesus means to them.

The other talks and music were equally wonderful! And I’m so grateful we got to be there!

One last little tradition that we have is that I am just obsessed with getting new Easter outfits. The kids were such sweeties and let me document them in their spring finery.

Anyway, all of this is LOTS and LOTS of words trying to convey one important idea: I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who atoned for the pains and sins of all mankind by giving His life and gloriously taking it up again. And that is ABSOLUTELY cause for celebration!