Free Family Easter Planner

This free family Easter planner has checklists, do lists, and resources to help you get ready for the Easter holiday.  It is in pdf format, so will require that you have Adobe Reader installed.  Enjoy!

Simplifying Easter

By: Mandi Ehman of Organizing Your Way

As with any other holiday, it’s easy to get caught up in commercialism at Easter. In any given store across America, you’ll find large pre-packaged Easter baskets filled with cheap trinkets and candy, fluffy stuffed animals just begging to be taken home and aisles lined with chocolate and marshmallows of all kinds.

In our home, we prefer to take a low-key approach to Easter, focusing more on the historical and religious significance of the day than on the pressure to shower our kids with gifts. Here are a few ideas for focusing your Easter celebrations as well:

Separate the Bunny-Stuff from the Easter-Stuff

I like bunnies and chocolate as much as the next person, and I have wonderful memories of dyeing Easter eggs and going on egg hunts with my family. Rather than turn into an Easter scrooge, we simply separate those things from our Easter celebration. For example, this week we’ll be doing projects focused on spring with our girls, including dyeing eggs, planting grass in little gift baskets and making crushed shell art.

In the days leading up to Easter, we’ll be focused on the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and our crafts and activities will reflect that focus with things such as paper palm leaves, resurrection eggs and crescent roll tombs.

I’ve never quite understood how chocolate bunnies relate to such a significant holiday, but separating the two helps our family find a balance that works for us.

Select Meaningful Easter Basket Items

Rather than heading to your local superstore and picking up a basket of toys that will likely end up broken, lost or set aside after a few days, choose meaningful items to put in your children’s Easter baskets. We always start with a new pair of sunglasses for each of our girls, but your baskets should reflect your children and your family values. The key is to be thoughtful in your selections rather than just filling a basket to keep up with the Joneses.

Here are some more ideas:

:: Pretty stationery and pencils

:: A special necklace or bracelet

:: A family game

:: A travel or nature journal

:: A sketchbook

:: Crayon roll or art supplies

Create Family Traditions

Most importantly, take the time to thoughtfully plan family traditions that will become part of your family’s fabric over the years. Whether these include making breakfast together on Easter morning, having an early-morning egg hunt or reading the story of the resurrection while curled up together in bed, your children are sure to remember them for years to come!

Mandi Ehman is a work-at-home mom to four spunky little girls. She believes that organizing only lasts if you do it your way – to fit your needs, your preferences and your lifestyle – and she shares organizing and time management tips at Organizing Your Way.

2009 Family Easter and Lent Activity Packs Are Here

Our popular family Easter and lent activity packs are in!  Our family Easter and Lent packs are designed specifically for families on the go who are looking for simple quiet ways to celebrate the Lent and Easter season without the planning, running, and hassle. Each activity pack includes a 2009 Lent calendar, daily family devotions for Lent, family activity ideas, and puzzles.  Lent begins February 25th!

Easter Activities and Games

With Easter only 12 days away, we thought it would be a good idea to offer up some fun Easter activities for the family. Enjoy!

Make a homemade basket for the Easter egg hunt. You can find a really cute bunny basket at FamilyFun.com or for group projects you might want to take a look at the cute bunny basket from S&S Worldwide.

Try some fun and wacky egg science experiments.

Spend the day making Easter bread with the kids.

Play an egg relay race game where family members divide into teams and race carrying an egg on a spoon. Another game to try is an egg toss game. Similar to a water balloon game, family members pair up in teams of two and slowly and gently toss an egg back and forth making sure to take a step backwards after every toss. Once a team drops their egg, they are out of the game. For something completely new, try the Dancing Eggs Game from Hearthsong. You would be amazed to find all the places and ways to carry an egg!

For big family Easter dinners, try making family trading cards. They make for hilarious dinnertime conversation!

Letter to the Future

Take advantage of your family get together at Easter this year to create a family time capsule. Ask all of your family members to bring an item that represents them (i.e. a picture, favorite recipe, book, drawing, etc) to the Easter or Passover dinner. Place all of the collected items along with a Letter to the Future in your time capsule and store it away until some agreed upon future family get together.