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Email a FriendWe do our best to make Easter a great big celebration without getting hung up on the stuff. Here’s a peak at something different we are doing this year to simplify and sanctify our baskets…
Catholic Easter Baskets: Simplify and Sanctify
http://tinyurl.com/3qeppdo
Easter is Coming
what's in your basket?
Posted by Rachel Balducci in Family on Tuesday, April 05, 2011 4:39 PM
I know we are liturgically still in a season of preparation—preparing our hearts and minds and souls for the Easter Triduum.
But as wives and mothers, we are also tasked with preparing practically as well. As such, I’ve got Easter baskets on my mind.
When our older boys were little, I still had high hopes of picture-perfect baskets. I would eye the baskets from celebrated food magazines and figure out how to get mine as pretty.
It wasn’t easy!
It’s hard to make baskets full of jelly beans and pint-sized sports equipment look as swank as foiled eggs and vintage toys. But I haven’t given up. Even though my head is a bit less in the clouds these days, I still look for the chance to let function and form find a happy medium.
Around here, we do tend to keep our baskets simple—a chocolate bunny, peanut butter eggs, a book and a small toy. I try not to overdo it when it comes to candy because as soon as the boys go back to school, I have the unfortunate habit of slowly but surely eating up whatever chocolate might be left hanging around our house. Me and Reese’s Butter Eggs have a complicated relationship. We go way back.
What about you? What is your approach to celebrating Easter in your home?
Comments
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I just wrote a long comment about this in the Coffee Talk post! I love doing Easter baskets, as a gift giver, it gives me joy to give the children little gifts since we refrain from buying non-essentials unless it’s Christmas or a birthday.
My girls this year are getting in their baskets: paper dolls (from http://www.minimepaperdolls.com/) for the 7 year old, a gift card to American Girl for the 5 year old (who is working hard to save up for a doll, I wanted to give her a small boost!), a unicorn jewelry box for the almost-4-year-old (who really wants to be like her big sisters), and a set of Sandra Boynton board books for the almost-2-year-old. Other than that, they’ll get a little bit of candy, some baked treats, a cute hat (found them on clearance for next to nothing at Children’s Place), and a religious item TBD (possibly Glory Stories - they LOVE those!).
Posted by Patricia on Tuesday, Apr 5, 2011 6:42 PM (EDT):
We do a family Easter basket instead of individual Easter baskets. After the Paschal Liturgy, we gather to have the priest bless the Pascha baskets. In them are several foods rich in symbolic meaning: yeasted sweet bread (represents the New Covenant) which is often braided (represents the Trinity), a bitter herb, (usually horseradish colored with beets, represents Christ’s bitter sufferings & the Blood of Christ), meat (usually sausage, represents the sacrifice of the OT Passover replaced by Christ, the New Passover & Lamb of God), salt (we are to be the “salt of the earth”), red dyed egg (tomb from which Christ rose), wine, cheese, & butter (these last 3 being figurative of the good things of life & that these earthly blessings come from God). Of course we’ll also have some chocolate in there, as well as a beeswax candle to be blessed. This year, I’ll include a couple books for the children (Saints of the Eucharist Vol. I & II ) & some CDs from Regina Martyrum on the lives St. Margaret Clitherow, St. Valentine & St. Patrick.
Posted by Mary Beth on Tuesday, Apr 5, 2011 11:25 PM (EDT):
We restock our Spring/summer supplies of bubbles/chalk and sandbox toys. A little bit of candy, but not much as Aunts and Uncles always supply more than any of ours could dream of eating! we always try to include a new religous themed movie. I gave up on colored eggs years ago as everyone likes to color them, but I can only eat so many hard boiled eggs for lunch…
Posted by Rebecca on Wednesday, Apr 6, 2011 8:54 AM (EDT):
My kids aren’t really candy kids, so we put very little of that in. They like the spring/Easter themed snack cakes better, so I sometimes get a box or 2 of those and split them up instead. They like the idea of chocolate bunnies though, so this year I got the smallest bunnies I could find so they didn’t get thrown away half-eaten. Their “gifts” are usually books, summer stuff, craft supplies or kits. Nothing big. This year they are all getting a book and sunglasses, and one little guy is getting a new water bottle because he just started soccer and needs one. We have a tradition that toddlers get their stuff in sand pails instead of baskets and that keeps the sandbox stocked with new toys. We also stuff plastic eggs. This year instead of candy I got stickers, balloons and those rubber bracelets. I was going to get a puzzle and split the pieces up in the eggs, but didn’t find one I liked that I thought would be age appropriate for all the kids.
Posted by Anne on Wednesday, Apr 6, 2011 9:07 AM (EDT):
Sometimes we write a letter to each child from “Jesus”. “Dear Daughter, Thank you for helping wiht the new baby. I love to see how tender you are with her when she cries and how patiently you play with her while mommy makes dinner. I know 5th grade has been a difficult year and I have heard your prayers . . . etc”.
I think the kids like the letters, but even more beneficial to my DH & I is that we spend the time trying to see each child through the eyes of God. And we always like our children better after we’ve written the letters. We put the letter in their basket.
Oh, and last year I bought an online program that will generate a scavenger hunt for you—you in put the ages of the kids, and the locations inside or outside and it creates rhymes & riddles for clues. That’s how the kids found their baskets last year. I also use it in the summer when the kids are bored. http://www.riddleme.net/
Posted by Sparki777 on Wednesday, Apr 6, 2011 5:05 PM (EDT):
Easter baskets are actually a bigger deal than Christmas stockings at our house (intentionally). So I might seem a little overboard. We always put in some sort of religious item: a book, a prayer card, a holy water font for their bedrooms or something like that. Our kids all love to read, so there is usually a book or two in every basket. Journals and new (fancy-ish) pens have become a tradition. Sometimes I have been able to snag great toys on clearance, so I’ll put that into the baskets (last year: batons for the girls & a set of juggling balls for the boy). We always do a chocolate rabbit, and this year, the kids all gave up Trader Joe’s chocolate covered ____ for Lent (blueberries, cranberries, etc.) so they’ll each get a carton of their favorite and a carton of Whopper’s Robin’s Eggs, another tradition.
Posted by Liesa Gonzalez on Thursday, Apr 7, 2011 9:09 AM (EDT):
Several years ago, we purposely down-sized all of the kids’ baskets. Since our kids usually only get non-necessary things on Christmas and birthdays, I find it so tempting to fill up their baskets and buy way too much. The smaller baskets help a great deal with that. This year, instead of so much candy, I’m thinking of a pair of nice goggles for our quick Easter beach getaway.
Posted by Monique on Thursday, Apr 7, 2011 9:05 PM (EDT):
Our Eater baskets start with a chocolate cross, as the centerpiece of the basket. There is a dyed egg with the child’s name, a few pieces of their favorite Easter candy, then 2-3 religous items, to keep with the holiness of the day. The only nod to the secular is the basket itself.
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