Skip to main content

28 Days to Easter Advent Calendar!

 I've been thinking a lot about Easter lately and how we can better prepare for it and make it a bigger holiday since it really should be the most significant holiday according to our religious beliefs. Jesus Christ's Atonement and Resurrection are the centerpiece and that should make Easter HUGE! I definitely don't want Easter to become like Christmas with all the gift-giving obligations (Christmas is way too much work, especially for moms) but I would like the Easter season to be frequently in our minds and hearts instead of the afterthought it sometimes feels like.

So after seeing some ideas about Easter advent calendars, I decided to come up with one and here it is. I borrowed heavily from this website: https://www.cranialhiccups.com/2012/03/the-living-christ-a-30-day-easter-countdown.html but simplified A LOT. My goal was to make it very doable, easy and short. I want it to fit easily into our life instead of feeling like a burden. My version is for older kids. You could easily change the questions to make it better for younger children.

Like that website did, I based it on The Living Christ: The Testimony of the Apostles. I quoted a sentence or two, found a scripture to go with it, then asked a discussion question or two. Here's a section of it:

Day Ten: “He was arrested and condemned on spurious charges, convicted to satisfy a mob.”
Luke 23:13-24
Why did Jesus allow the people to persecute him?

Day Eleven: “He was sentenced to die on Calvary’s cross. He gave His life to atone for the sins of all mankind. His was a great vicarious gift in behalf of all who would ever live upon the earth.”
John 19:16-19, 25-30
Whom did Jesus ask Heavenly Father to forgive and how did he forgive those who killed him?

Day Twelve: “He was the Firstborn of the Father, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh.”
D&C 93:21-22
How is Jesus the Firstborn of the Father? How was he the Only Begotten Son?



Then I bought a bunch of plastic Easter eggs and some small Easter candy so I could fit the candy (enough for each member of the family) and the paper strip for each day into the eggs which I numbered. My granddaughter helped me and drew some faces on some of the eggs.😊

Then I put them in a bowl. I thought about putting strings on them and hanging them on some branches to make a tree effect but that sounded too involved (remember the goal is doable and easy). So the bowl it was. You could probably find some nicer looking eggs and definitely a nicer bowl than the one in this picture, but this is it for now--less focus on the exterior, more focus on the interior. If we save the paper and put them in the right eggs, I can store the whole thing for next year and just need to add the candy.


My plan is for us to start Sunday (4 weeks before Easter) and take an egg out each day and read it and talk about it, ideally at dinnertime. It will finish the day before Easter. We'll see how it goes! Here's a PDF of the document: 28 Days to Easter Advent Calendar



















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Visiting Susquehanna: The Priesthood Restoration Site

On our way home from Palmyra, we decided to go a couple of hours out of our way to visit the recently opened Priesthood Restoration Site along the Susquehanna River.  This is where we believe that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the keys of the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist which gave them the authority to baptize.  This site also has the restored Isaac and Elizabeth Hale home where Joseph and Emma lived for a year as well as the home where Joseph and Emma lived on their own. We spent a couple of hours there and I wouldn't have minded a few more minutes but we had a long way to go that night.  It's a beautiful setting, very much in rural Pennsylvania.  However, on the day we were there, cars at a racetrack nearby were detracting from the peace and quiet.  I'm guessing that's not as big of a problem on weekdays. The Hale Family was quite well-off for their day so their home was probably nicely decorated with wallpaper and carpet. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Review: Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

This is a juvenile fiction book about a young girl named Melody with severe cerebral palsy.  Her body doesn't allow her to feed herself, speak, or do much at all.  She's very intelligent with a photographic memory but she can't really communicate.  Finally, in 5th grade, she gets a "Medi-Talker" which is a computer that speaks what she types in.  Finally she has a voice. This book explores what it is like to be severely physically disabled but not mentally disabled. It seems like one of the most frustrating of all scenarios.  She is completely aware of all the cruelty (subtle and otherwise) that her classmates inflict on her because they don't really want to include her in their activities.  One of the saddest moments in the book comes when she realizes that every one of her special ed classmates is kind, where the "normal" ones are not.  Who really has the worse disability? The book was a quick read and fairly enjoyable.  Wha...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hansen Family Plot in the Provo Cemetery

On Memorial Day this year, our family went to the Provo Cemetery, as we do almost every year. We spent some time at the Hansen Family plot which contains the grave of my 2nd great-grandparents, Peter and Mary Hansen. They both emigrated from Denmark with their spouses to Utah. My grandfather lost his first wife Ane to cholera on the plains outside of St. Joseph, Missouri, along with three of his little boys within a very short time--about one month. It's a sad story but it's also one of admirable resilience. He brought his one surviving son, Jorgen, to Utah. He married his second wife Maren (Anglicized to Mary) some 9 years later in Utah  She had been married before but lost her first husband at an unknown date. I wish I knew more about her but she left very few records, although I could do more research! Peter and Maren had 6 more children together. The youngest two were twins, Enoch and Ephraim. Ephraim is my great-grandfather and is buried in California. He is the father of ...
Post a Comment
Read more