Easter Traditions - South Sioux City,NE

We do both the religious part and the secular part with our kids. I was raised this way as well. For me, the religious part is the most important and I'm trying to pass that on to my kids. I took all 3 kids to Holy Thursday Mass, and I'm taking my oldest to the Vigil tonight. We will also all attend 9:00 AM Mass in the morning.

We also dye eggs, do an egg hunt, and give the kids small Easter baskets. We have a big feast at my SIL's home every year.

Our family is secular. We enjoy Easter as more of an "American Cultural" sort of thing-- more in deference to our son than anything else.

Today we all dyed eggs, myself, Kiddo and husband. Tomorrow, I'll hide them in the yard. We are doing a modest basket for him, mostly art supplies that we've run out of and one 'family' present (Story Cubes, for restaurants), and a few fruit leathers and little bit of chocolate.

It doesn't quite compete with the GIANT Easter baskets at the store, but I tell him that what he gets is what the Easter bunny wants him to have. Kind of like Santa in that way. (He wanted the Easter Bunny to bring him a $60 Lego set... wrong mythical character, that!)

We've always done midnight mass. My family was all religion, no candy, no bunnies, no hunts. Now that I'm grown with my own kids, I do take them to at least one egg hunt or do one at home. I don't like putting candy inside but I saw one person mention to put a note in it as something they can do like extra TV time. You could put bible quotes in them too.

The neighbors go on a trip every year to see family and we baby sit their chickens.
We have a ham dinner and if the weather is springlike we try to tidy up the garden a bit.
Now that our son is older we don't do Easter baskets or colored eggs anymore.
We just enjoy spring break at home and we don't do anything religious.

I have no Easter traditions to fall back on or carry on. I didn't grow up with any and haven't managed to start my own. My boys and I will attend church tomorrow, as we do most Sundays. And although I know Easter Sunday is special in itself, I wish we were doing more to celebrate.

My daughter (now 18) and I have always made easter candy and given it to neighbors, friends,etc. However, this year, time got the best of us and we didn't make the candy. I still have people asking for it, LOL

Last night we dyed eggs and watched movies. Today she got up and her Easter Basket was ready for her. I usually stuff the plastic eggs with candy but this year, since she is a senior and heading to college in the fall, I stuffed the eggs with $5 bills. She was surprised!! I still had all of her favorite candies in it as well.

Later today, we will have roasted rack of lamb, asparagus and some other veggie.

We hang out together on Easter. Hubby is enjoying the weather and he is at home Depot now getting some yard items. Lowes just made a big delivery to our neighbor and he is working in his yard as well.

Happy Easter!

We spend Easter as a family- just the three of us. We go to church in the morning and then we have our first cook out of the year. Sometimes we do meat on the grill and traditional Easter sides. This year we are doing potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, grilled corn, and pudding pie. Yum! We play with my daughter's presents (we don't really do a basket per say- she gets a few presents (this year it's a magic 8 ball, a huge pack of colored pencils, and a ream of computer paper- it's what she asked for) and a chocolate bunny) and watch movies. We pretty much just hang out and eat and be together. It's always so fun to just have the day together.

We did a little less than usual for Holy Week this year because it fell during spring break, but we would normally attend Maundy Thursday service and Good Friday service. We attend the Easter Sunday breakfast and service on Sunday morning, then come home to Easter Baskets and an egg hunt. Easter baskets have a chocolate bunny, Kinder Eggs, shampoo, toothpaste and toothbrush, Lego's etc. The eggs for the egg hunt are plastic eggs with chocolate eggs inside. We have a special dinner on Easter Sunday, usually with my brothers family.

We've just done our egg hunt, and tonight we'll be having pea and ham soup with crusty bread for dinner. There will be much eating of chocolate today.

Normally we go to Church on Easter Sunday.. but this year we are skipping it.

We talk about what Easter means as being a Christian to us for about a month before Easter so that way the younger kids understand what it is all about and why we celebrate.

We also do the bunny part. We colored eggs today. Tonight we will put some carrots out. After they go to bed we lay "bunny tracks" ( large bunny feet cut outs) around the house. In the morning we will find the eggs and then go to my Dad's and have a nice meal with him.

We do pretty close to equal amounts of bunny, eggs, basket decorations as crosses and religious crafts. All while talking about what the real meaning ( for us) as to why we celebrate.

Its all about being able to let them learn what our reasoning for celebrating and still having the fun with it also. Kinda like Christmas and Santa Claus.