Celebrating Easter 2020 with Kids

This past week the girls and I started talking about how Easter is next weekend and everything feels so, well, different. 

So much has changed in such a short period of time. 

So much. 

The conversation revolved around how we'll be cooking a ham and potatoes at home...alone. No grandmas and grandpas. No aunts or cousins. No dressing up for church and hugging our church family in-person. No worshipping in a sanctuary, in community, in person. It does feel a little strange, and a little sad. I understand their disappointment. I'm disappointed too. 

On top of it, our plans to travel to Florida next Monday (the day after Easter) have also been cancelled, which I'm not lamenting in the grand scope of things, but the kids had been looking forward to it for months. Ava has been picking out "Florida" outfits online and talking about sitting in the sunshine since December (listen, when you live in Buffalo you dream about sunshine in Florida!). 

I've told them that a bazillion other things have been cancelled for so many people all around the country-- vacations, weddings, school plays, proms, end of school year celebrations, concerts-- the list goes on and on. It did little to quell their disappointment. I mean, they are kids after all. 

After our conversation I spent some time pondering how we would celebrate Easter despite all of the changes and feel excited about it. What could we do? Where could I be more intentional? How can we make the house feel festive and decorative? 

I also kept asking myself this question, What truth can I share with the kids this week to help them feel ok about this different-kind-of-Easter?  

God spoke to me pretty quickly as I prayed about it. As a matter of fact, it was almost an instantaneous answer. I asked the question and this is what I heard in my spirit, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8).

Whoa. Right. The most important thing about Easter hasn't changed at all. 

That's what the kids need to know. That's what we all need to know.  

The raw truth is, Christ came to this earth, conquered death, and rose again to save us from our sins and offer eternal life. Nothing changes that. Not even Coronavirus. 

He promises he will come back one day and that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. He promises new life and that all of this brokenness will be renewed, restored and redeemed. 

So, we will ABSOLUTELY be celebrating Easter this week, and we're going to enjoy every minute of it, as different as it might feel. 

I spent some time organizing a few Bible verses (one for each day of the week) and sorting through several activities online that I plan to do with the kids-- a few things that will hopefully make the week feel more "fun" and celebratory, and not just another week at home in the middle of our socially distant lives. 

If you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you along. I'll be posting something here each day (Sunday-Friday)-- a scripture, some pictures (of what we're doing), and a few activities that I found online, mostly with materials I either knew we already had at home, or that would be easy to find. 

If you hop over to my Little Writer Momma Facebook page each morning you’ll find a link to the daily blog posts, and tomorrow I'll also be posting a PDF with the Sunday-Sunday scripture verses we'll be focusing on this week. If you click the "like" button at the top of the FB page the posts and links will find their way into your Facebook feed as well. 

I'd also love to hear what you are all doing to celebrate this year.  Please share your pictures, links and ideas. We are still a community, it's just a different sort of community right now and so we must lean on one another, spur one another along and continue to encourage each other to hold fast to unchanging truth in a world that is always changing.