Are you eating enough meat for your mental health? I encourage you to watch this video with Kelly Hogan and Dr. Kelli Ritter to help you determine that. Whether you suffer from anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, you may benefit from eating more meat. Kelly talks about how something seemingly benign as soy sauce in her mother’s pot roast causes her to lie awake at night with anxiety, “doubting every life choice I have ever made, ” in Kelly’s words.
I was either vegan or vegetarian for over 5 years, starting back in 1997. I feel so much better now that I eat meat, and not just some meat, but mostly meat.
Hey if you enjoyed the podcast episode on holographic blood that I shared a few weeks ago, over here, you are going to love this sequel. Listen here. The description of the episode is below, copied and pasted from the episode website.
” ‘If we don’t understand how nature works, we’re just guessing at trying to fix things.’ Adam and Josh Bigelsen provide insight today in how to listen to the body’s messages, in order to address them. If you have trauma (and, naturally, most of us do), it doesn’t mean just doing emotional work for healing. The physical has to be addressed as well.”
“Today the Bigelsen brothers, from the Bigelsen Academy, offer insights on what the body is telling us, along with uncovering the emotional ties behind cancer, rashes and hives, asthma and mononucleosis, for example.”
“This is a power-packed episode building on Wise Traditions podcast episode 523, which was the beginning of this conversation. You may want to go back and listen to that one for context and then follow it up with this one!”
The Bigelsen brothers have a YouTube Channel called “The Blood Diaries.” I have a few videos below. The last one about a man who worked with Dr. Bigelsen after becoming paralyzed from the waist down is astounding. He now walks again with prostheses and holds the world record for lifting weights with his legs! Amazing!
Before I let any more post-Easter-2025-time pass, I’m capturing my memories of it. I just love that the celebration of Easter, remembering the atonement and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, happens at springtime, at least in North America. I love the amazing change from winter to spring with the bursting of blooms and greenery. It’s such a perfect backdrop for feeling the possibility of change of our own lives from being sinners in bondage to sin and death, to saints in the kingdom of God in joy, redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ.
These lilacs are on my walk to church. I’m enjoying them while I can before they fade away.
Even though Easter came late this year, I still wasn’t quite ready. Not everything turned out the way I wanted to. Here are my memories, musings, and lessons learned.
First, I love the tradition from Emily Belle Freeman of cutting a branch off a tree or bush in your yard on Palm Sunday and putting it in a vase. Then later in the week for one of her other Easter traditions you are supposed to write testimonies on slips of paper and put them in plastic eggs and hang them on the tree. I’m still figuring that other tradition out. It seems easy enough but it just hasn’t happened yet, either because every night over dinner, we don’t have time for this activity to not feel rushed. I’m also stuck on the logisitcs of hanging the eggs. I have the tiny eggs but they don’t have holes in them to thread the twine through. Maybe I will get eggs that have holes or just tape the twine on the eggs for next year. Or switch out my Resurrection Eggs that do have holes in them for the eggs I bought last year for this purpose but haven’t used.
2. I participated in a Good Friday concert involving an orchestra and choir for my church, playing the violin. What an amazing experience! It was a 55 voice orchestra. I played 4 songs: one that was super difficult with lots of sixteenth notes, called “Worthy is the Lamb,” “I Feel My Savior’s Love,” “He Sent His Son,” and a piece from Handel’s Messiah. I missed a lot of notes and had some bowing out of order (going the opposite direction as the rest of the violins), as I am a very rusty violinist after not playing much in over 30 years. I have been wanting to get back into violinist mode for years, as I miss the beauty and joy of playing. When I saw this opporunity, I knew it was finally time. I have a friend who is a professional violinist, having been raised by a professional violinist, but that I am not. I started playing in 4th grade when I heard our grade school was starting on orchestra. I had fallen in love with the violin and asked my mom if she would get me one so I could be part of an orchestra. Thus began my humble violinist career. I played in my school’s orchestra from 4th to 11th grade and then put it aside until now. I took private lessons from 9th to 11th grade, then quit because I just didn’t feel that good at it, not good like in the other skills I had mastered, including reading, writing, and math, with all the AP classes I took. I had two friends in the neighborhood who were sisters and played in the orchestra. One on the cello, one on the viola. They had a mother who was superb at playing the piano. I always felt, haha, pardon the pun, second fiddle to them. I gave in to the thought of “I’ll never be as good as them, so I may as well give up.” Looking back, I just wish I had reached out to my teacher and asked for more help in getting better.
Playing again, in this Easter orchestra as an adult, was a great brain exercise for me and a lesson in humility. This was was my Easter offering to the Lord. I’m grateful the director didn’t kick me out with all my slowness and wrong notes! Let’s just say, impostor syndrome is real! When I was playing the right notes, LOL, it felt so good to feel that orchestra vibe again, of being part of a team that creates beauty synchronously, under the direction of a master conductor. It is a great simulation of life under the direction of Jesus.
3. My married daughter and I dyed Easter eggs with her two little boys. This is the first Easter she has spent with us in years because they lived away in Califnornia for a a few years. But now they live about 25 minutes away! I haven’t dyed eggs in probably 8 years or more because nobody has seemed interested in it since she flew the coop, years ago to go to college, and the younger ones have grown up to be teens. Married daughter and I both love arts and crafts so this was heaven for me. We used this Martha Stewart book shown below, which picked up when thrifting a few years ago, for egg decorating ideas.
I love her tip to use electrical tape for blocking off sections that you don’t want colored. See the photo in the upper right corner of the book cover. Or course ours didn’t look nearly as elegant. When I was a child we used masking tape but electrical tape works so much better as it’s more flexible. I made an egg with stripes, an egg with checkered squares, and an egg with a cross on it. I figured I’d take photos of them the next day when I set them out for Easter dinner.
Sadly, the next day, when I went to warm up the eggs by putting them in a bowl with some hot water boiled from the teapot after taking hgem out of the fridge, the hot water washed all the dye away for them all to be uniformly pink. I guess we didn’t use enough vinegar with the dye so it would be colorfast regardless of temperature. So I ended up not getting photos of my art before it washed away! So sad!
The photos above are the ones my daughter and grandsons did. Anyway it felt so good to be back in crafting for holiday land again with my dear daughter. Next year I’m going to make sure we do the right amount of vinegar, so the dye doesn’t wash away in hot water, invite my mom to join us since she loves to craft too, and have a foam board with pins like Martha says to use in the book in order to dry the freshly dyed eggs. We used a regular old egg carton to hold the freshly dyed eggs. The problem with that though is that the water collects in the bottom of the carton and then that can get the next egg you put in there a different color on the bottom of the egg where it touches the puddle of dyed water.
4. We lit up our Immanuel Wreath on Easter Sunday instead of every day leading up to it like at Advent time. This time I put a platter under it to keep the wax from getting on the tablecloth. (I sill haven’t gotten the wax off the tablecloth from the time I went platter-less at Christmas. Ugh.) And I still can’t find my original glass platter I used in the old house before our move a year ago which fits the wreath much better. It was a wedding gift and has beautiful, embossed fruit images on the glass. Anyway, we did this over Easter Sunday Dinner when my married daughter and her little family were here. We only talked about three names “Good,” “Life,” and “Advocate.” The original plan was to light up each candle only after someone told a story of Jesus showing up in their life in that role, as we ate dinner. I could see it would take a long time to do that so I decided to just light up the whole wreath of candles after we just did three names.
The discussion of “advocate” took up a lot of time because my youngest child, the only one that I’m still homeschooling since the others are graduated from college and married, in college or on a mission, had just participated in a mock trial with other homeschooled students. I was the team coach. It was for the Hero LEMI Project class I am mentoring. We won! So it was fun to talk about this as a family. My husband, married daughter and son-in-law are all great conversationalists. My married daughter also did mock trials when she was a teen so this conversation was very engaging. By the time we were done talking about that and the role of advocates and that Jesus is the best criminal defense attorney ever, the grandsons were restless. I’m thinking that next year I will have some quiet toys ready for the grandsons during our discussion or just send them downstairs to play with Legos or Magnetiles while the rest of us talk. I will also have some note cards to pass out to everybody and give everyone about 5 – 10 minutes to write down. Then I want to keep the note cards in some kind of special Easter notebook or binder that has pocket pages. I want to keep everyone’s they write every year and see the changes that happen. I also want to keep the slips of paper with their testimonies. I wish I had started this years ago, but at least now I can start this when my grandsons are young and they can grow up with doing at Grandma’s.
Emily Belle Freeman is the creator of the Immanuel Wreath and the instigator of this tradition. I know she has small grandchildren. So I want to pick her brain and find out how she does this tradition with restless children. If anybody knows her personally will you please send her my way so I can ask her?
This year we did the egg hunt on Saturday instead of Sunday, after dinner. We are missing my child who loves to grill so we didn’t have a BBQ. When he was home he loved to be on BBQ duty. We are missing him because he left to go on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That’s the greatest reason ever though so I’m not even sad. I did the Resurrection Eggs activity afterwards after the hunt while everyone was eating candy. I hope to make this a yearly thing with my grandsons so they look forward to it and can tell the story of the atonement and resurrection of Jesus by heart and know how much He loves us.
Then on Sunday we went to church and had a glorious sacrament meeting. A little bit of a recap is here. I sang in the ward choir as part of the church service, singing the hymn from the new collection of hymns, “Behold the Wounds In Jesus’ Hands.” Listen below. The words are here. It is just so, so, so beautiful!
I got the banner in the photo above that says, “He is Risen Indeed” from Jennifer Flanders over here. I just love how festive it looks!
After Sunday dinner we played parable charades, as directed by this wonderful book. The author says to use playdoh for temple sculpturades and regular charades for the parables charades. She suggests doing Temple Sculpturades for Holy Week Monday, because that’s when you talk about Jesus cleansing the temple, and then do Parables Charades on Wednesday for Parables Wednesday. I saved the charades for Sunday when the married daughter and her family would be here. But I wanted to do parables sculpturades. But the playdoh I made for sculpturades didn’t turn out because I didn’t realize we were so low on flour, on Easter Sunday, so the playdoh was too sticky. So that’s a lesson learned, to check for the ingredients needed way ahead of time. Next year I’m going to skip the playdoh and make cloud dough, out of corn starch, and hair conditioner, as shown below and here.
After the charades, my married daughter and her family, including the grandsons, left. So then we had singing time with three of my children with me playing the piano. We sang a few Easter songs that are linked in the April section of my family devotionals ebook. Then my BYU son left to go back to his place. So then we did our Come Follow Christ scripture reading and had family prayer and then watched Relative Race. It was a peaceful, glorious day. I’m so grateful for no snow or rain. I have experienced a few Utah Easters with each one. It actually started snowing on Good Friday but then stopped thank goodness. Crazy Utah weather!
We also watched Narnia the next night, Monday night, for Family Home Evening. It’s such a great story with an allegory of Christ, with His atonement and resurrection. I look forward to watching it with my grandchildren for a future Easter time.
All right, here’s what I’m going do next year, to make Easter even better, in addition to applying the lessons I learned above:
I think from now on I want to do a family Easter basket, like shown below, just for a little more fun, and say it’s the family Easter love basket, from our family love, not from the Easter bunny. I want to give family members the credit for giving, not some dumb pretend bunny made up to sell more toys. Of course all my kids are older so the ideas for little kids don’t apply. I’ll ask everybody who lives at home, now that I have teen and adult children, to contribute one inexpensive, simple thing the family will enjoy, whether it’s food, socks, a puzzle, a game, or even some pages of meaningful thoughts in the form of a letter or poetry. I’ll ask them to deposit it in the basket after people go to bed. The item can even be thrifted to save money, as I am all for thrifting, as you’ve seen here. Here’s a family Easter basket video, below, that I enjoyed, even though I’m not huge on the pirate theme of one of the games. And I don’t like Peeps. In my fantasy life I envision having all the time and money in the world to make gloriously naturally crunchy mom nontoxic, sugar-free treats and gifts including jewelry that promotes faith in Christ, scripture study aids, classic books, gardening tools, items for summer like new beach towels or swimsuits, puzzle books, aprons, kitchen gadgets, and fidget toys. Reality is settling in though to bring me back to the idea of having each family member contribute, even with cheap thrifted items. It just sounds fun and encouraging of generosity to ask everyone to give of themselves in some small way, to remember the infinite way Christ did, which we are celebrating at Easter time.
2. I want to give Easter baskets anonymously to lonely and elderly people, like the Holy Week for families book talks about on page 22.
3. I want to find my Gospel Art Kit with my pictures of the Holy Week timeline events to put in order on the wall like I have in years’ past. Another casualty of the move apparently. The photo below is of the art prints from a previous Easter.
4. I want to plan a sing-along time with friends to sing Easter songs like I’ve done in year’s past, and introduce the songs from this songbook below to my friends. Many of the songs pertain to Easter. I found it while thrifting last year, one of my best thrifting treasures ever!
5. I want to do the Plan of Happiness Treasure Hunt with the grandsons and the children still at home on the Sunday after Easter, as outlined in the book below, on page 31. My husband’s cousin Janet Hilton Hales and her husband Joe Hales wrote it. They were pioneers in pushing for Christ-centered Easter celebrations, over 20 years ago. We’ve done this treasure hunt on and off over the years, it’s fun and spiritual at the same time. It’s wonderful for teaching what Jesus did in the spirit world on Salvation Saturday, after the crucifixion and before He appeared to Mary in the garden. I keep an envelope full of the clues taped inside the back cover for easy use.
6. I’m thinking I want to create some sensory bins that are Easter and spring-themed for my grandsons to play with while we discuss the names of Christ for the Immanuel Wreath. This is for when they are done eating Easter Sunday dinner but the rest of us aren’t ready to leave the table. I want them to hear the conversation, and I don’t want us to be pulled away to play with them away from the conversation. More ideas are here and here for DIY sensory bins and materials. I’d also like to buy the pretty one here.
If I’m really ambitious, I’ll create some kind of Christ-centered Easter sensory bin inspired by this video above. Or maybe just make tiny tokens out of sculpey clay that are featured in the DIY Resurrection Eggs here and put them in a bin of colored chickpeas. Or just use the regular tokens that are in those instructions I just linked to. It would be so cool to somehow come up with little tokens that represent the names of Christ, like a light bulb or lamp for “light” but some of those names are too abstract liked “advocate.” Hey maybe my married daughter and I could spend an afternoon making these sensory bins next winter! It would totally be something so fun to look forward to doing in the January doldrums. A girl can always dream right? I could also buy this one on etsy shown below. I’ll only get it out on Easter Sunday to make it extra special.
7. I also want to get an Easter creche with figures the grandchildren can play with, like this one maybe.
8. Finally, I want to act out the Easter story, just like we do the Nativity story at Christmas, like Elder Stevenson shared that his family does, in the talk below. We could act it with the items shown in the basket above or do it with people moving and speaking different parts.
9. I finally read through Emily Belle Freeman’s book shown above to find out if the traditions described in the book match the traditions she shows in her videos over here. I figured out two things:
a. They match up except for the first day. On the first day, in the book, she suggests you plant wheat berries in soil in a small container, to turn into wheat grass. She focuses on Lazarus, saying that the grass represents life coming forth from a dark place. I realized this past week that her traditions in the book are not actually linked to the days of Holy Week. Her traditions focus on people involved in the story, not on the events of the days of Holy Week. In the set of videos, the only tradition that actually focuses on a day is the tradition with getting a branch in a vase on Palm Sunday.
b. It is too hard for me to do her traditions, one each day of Holy Week, plus the traditions for Holy Week in the Holy Week book shown below, on each day of Holy Week. So, I’m going to do Emily’s once a week, in the 5 weeks leading up to Easter. Then we will end on Palm Sunday and do her Palm Sunday tradition of the branch in a vase. That means if Easter is in March, like it sometimes is, we will be starting Emily’s Easter traditions in February. That definitely sounds fun to break up the winter monotony. It will be fun to plant Easter grass in February. Then the last tradition we will do on Easter Sunday like she says.
One of the glorious springtime scenes I get to see whenever I walk outside in my front yard.
So that’s my debrief of our Easter 2025. I’m excited that I already have plans for Easter 2026! Every year, I get closer and closer to making it my ideal, a festival of celebration in line with Elder Gary E. Stevenson, who quoted N.T. Wright in the April 2023 General Conference:
“We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.” -Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Liahona, May 2023,
I’d love to hear what went well for your Easter and what you plan for next year, please share them in the comments, if you’d like, below.
Easter 2025 is over, but just like with Christmas last January, I’m not quite ready to let it go. I just love Easter! I thought it would be fun to share some Easter videos from some different families who shared their Easter thoughts and memories on the Internet.
First is this video from Cindy, of Families in the Millennium YouTube Channel. I love her idea to give each family member an index card and pen to write down how they saw Jesus show up in their lives recently, acting in the different roles with the different names, which I talk about over here. From now on, I’m thinking I’m going to do this first, instead of asking family members to verbalize their thoughts, when we do the Immanuel Wreath candles. Then at the end of five minutes or so, ask if anybody wants to share. So far when we’ve done this, in the past few years, not everybody talks. I’m thinking if I give them the chance to write first, they might all open up more after getting the thoughts going with writing. We’ll see.
Second is this video from Michaela Bates Keilen and her husband Brandon Keilen, which you can watch over here.
Credit for Photos Above and Below: Keilen Corner YouTube Channel
I love that towards the end they share their testimony of Jesus. They talk about how we are all sinners, we each have broken lives. Jesus is the way to restore us. I also love that they share their time visiting Brandon’s family farm in Michigan. He shows how his mother really gets into baking for the Easter holiday. See her cupcakes above and the bunny cake. Something I will probably never do but I appreciate when others do it. I’d love to make them sugar free and or keto.
Then there’s the Holladay family, of singlemomonafarm.com. It looks like the Holladays and the next family I highlight are both families who do the egg hunt and Easter baskets without the Easter bunny bringing gifts like a springtime Santa Claus. I’m not the only one.
Then there’s the Happy Caravan family, the De La Motts who live in Harlem, New York. They are a musical family of 11 children. I remember my sister telling me about them a while ago. I’m fascinated by their story, of how they have been able to foster their children’s musicality and support their children in following their dreams of being professional musicians. I love the Easter egg hunt in the backyard with the timid French cousins watching.
Speaking of music, there’s another musical family I enjoy watching. The Crosbys shared this video below right before Easter, so I assume it was meant for Easter. We don’t often think of gratitude linking with the Easter holiday but this is an invitation to do so.
This video shows a domestic fantasy of mine, living on a homestead as a large family, and prepping a huge family dinner from scratch.
Happy post-Easter time! I invite you to do what Sister Cindy says in the top video of this post to carry the Easter spirit/the spirit of Christ with us through the whole year.
Here’s the newest podcast from Wise Traditions, hosted by Hilda Labrada Gore:
“What if your body was trying to tell you something about your state of health…through your blood? And not just through blood tests or ‘live blood analysis’ but via a holographic image?! Adam and Josh Bigelsen are carrying on the important work of their father, Harvey Bigelsen, the author of Holographic Blood and Doctors are More Harmful than Germs.
“Today they help us wrap our head around the message(s) that our bodies want to communicate to us. They explain the patterns that the blood uses to tell us about our health. They also go over the progression of disease and how important it is to read the body’s messages… and how you can you do so with or without a dark field microscopy instrument.” (copied from here)
If you want more information, visit the Bigelsens’ website, bigelsenacademy.com, where you can get a free ebook!
This substack here also has a summary of Dr. Bigelsen’s work. It’s so interesting how it aligns so far as I can tell, for now, with the Law of the Terrain, which I’ve blogged about here.
Did you know that 55 years today Earth Day started, in 1970?
For Earth Day, I’m celebrating in a unique way. I’m sharing this video below, called “UNearthing the CO2 Pipeline.” Please take the time to watch so you can get educated on some people’s plans for the earth. Then take action to stand for farmers, property rights, and basic science, which is that carbon dioxide is part of nature/God’s plan.
If this video below is no longer functioning, please watch the documentary over here.
This was our Sunday Easter dinner table, minus the plates, which I had over in the serving line for the food, in the kitchen. I wish I had noticed my husband’s cell phone sitting there and removed it for the photo. Oh well!
The past few days I didn’t finish adding the Emily Belle Freeman Easter videos of daily Easter Traditions. Life just got really full of all my responsibilities, so I had to drop some stuff. I was enjoying a festival of Easter with my family. I prayed that whoever came looking here for the rest of the videos was able to find them with the search function in the upper right of this page. If you still want to watch them, they are here. Easter is over, but the videos are beautiful. You can feel the Holy Spirit as you watch them any time of year.
I enjoyed bingeing on all things Easter last week. So now I’m basking in the post-Easter glow, just like I do with Christmas. Here are some of the videos I loved and learned from, below. So, if you are like me and want to keep enjoying Easter vibes, I hope you will watch these and learn and delight in the truths shared therein. I immensely loved our church service on Easter Sunday. One of the speakers was a young man who is about to embark on serving a mission in Paraguay for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He shared that Easter is an especially wonderful time for his family. He said that about ten years ago, his dad proposed marriage to this stepmom. Then a year later after that, his stepmom and his dad announced that she was expecting a baby. Up until then he had been an only child. He was so excited to finally get a sibling! Now it’s 10 years later and this Easter marks a milestone for him as he got to speak about leaving on a mission on Easter Sunday.
So his story reminded me of my story that has involved Easter. It was three years ago right around Easter that I felt super low due to a family member’s poor choices. Now here we are three years later, around Easter, and the situation has completely turned 180 for good. My own Easter miracle! It gives me hope that may more miracles are possible.
I love that in the video below, Jared Halverson says that that is part of the Easter message. We can know that Something Better is to come, because death is not the end, because Jesus broke the bondage of death. Whatever seems dead in our life right now, will somehow become better with Jesus.
Of all the videos I watched, this one below was my favorite, with John Hilton III, explaining what was involved with Jesus dying on the cross. Brother Hilton shares that it was such an important part of the atonement. It’s just so beautiful. In the video, he tells a story of a young woman with a traumatic past of sexual abuse. He says that after looking at a picture of the crucifixion of Jesus, she said that God understands her. He also pointed out that Enoch, in the Pearl of Great Price, was told in Moses 7, when Enoch was in the depths of despair after not being able to get the people to listen to his preaching, he was told to look at an image. What was the image? It was Jesus on the cross. Wow. I had never picked up on that before. It’s just amazing to think that when Moses was feeling soooo sad, he shown Jesus on the cross, not in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is something to ponder for sure.
Then this one by Lili De Hoyos Anderson, I absolutely love. Easter is especially meaningful to her after the death of her husband. She shares such tender emotions and rock-solid testimony of the hope that comes in Jesus that she will see her husband again.
Happy post-Easter days to you all! If you want to feel more of the hope that comes from Jesus, I invite you to read the scriptures (Bible, Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and Doctrine and Covenants, found here) as well as all the stories about miracles I have gathered in my Family Devotionals Ebook here, in the April section. Go here for that.
For years I’ve used “Resurrection Eggs” to tell the real Easter story, the story of the atoning sacrifice and death of Jesus, after we do an Easter egg hunt. While my children eat their candy that is inside the eggs, we open up each egg from the Resurrection Egg set, read the scripture on the slip of paper inside the egg, and relate it to the tiny object inside the Resurrection Egg. Each object relates to the story of the last week of Jesus Christ’s life, the Holy Week. My Resurrection Eggs are all blue, and I keep them separated from the other eggs, in a different bag, that comes out after the hunt is over. I guess you could mix the eggs in with the candy-filled eggs for the hunt, but I don’t. I don’t want to risk the Resurrection Eggs getting lost, which I’m ok with regarding the candy-filled eggs. Telling the Easter story with the Resurrection Eggs right after the hunt keeps the focus of the hunt on Jesus, not the Easter bunny. We don’t do the Easter bunny bearing gifts. We still do an Easter egg hunt, but we tie it back to Jesus and not the Easter bunny. Life is all about seeking and finding truth, similar to a “hunt,” and the Ultimate Truth is Jesus. “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”- John 14:6
(Years ago, we decided not to have the Easter bunny come and fill baskets for my children. We have Easter baskets, but they are just for gathering these candy-filled eggs on the hunt, not to be filled with stuff from the Easter bunny. This is definitely one way I am a minimalist mom. I just don’t like the commercialization of Easter, and too much sugar and junk. I loved getting an Easter basket as a child, it’s true, but when I grew up and discovered that the Easter bunny was just a way for toy manufacturers to make money at Easter time, I said “No thank you.” I like toys and fun stuff as much as the next person though. So if you want some crunchy, holistic mom Easter basket ideas go here.)
Anyway, you can buy a set of Resurrection Eggs of course, but if you want to make your own, here are the instructions from homeschooling mom of 12, Jennifer Flanders, over here. I love that if you don’t have the time or inclination to hunt down all the little objects to tell the Easter story, you can print the pictures of the objects and use those. I so love the tiny clay objects she made for her eggs. I fantasize about making such delightful pieces of art someday but right now it’s not going to happen. She does have suggestions for finding tiny objects around your home for the tokens if you don’t want to make them out of clay or use the paper pictures.
She has a slightly different Biblical worldview than I do, as she might for you, and she uses a lot more eggs than I do, 24, so she has one for each grandchild. You don’t have to start your Easter story clear back to Adam and Eve like she does, of course, you can start any time later, and do however many eggs you want to. An even dozen is nice because then they can all fill a recycled dozen egg container.
As a final note, blessings to the Sunday Primary teachers of two of my children years ago who created a set of these eggs and gave each of them a set. We’ve used them almost every year since then! As pieces got lost I could use pieces from the other set. Thank you, thank you, whoever you are. I’m sorry I don’t remember who you are, sometimes life as a mom becomes a blur in the cycle of mothering chores. 🙂 Thank you, and know we are using your gifts, year after year, and now the grandchildren will benefit! Thank you also to Jennifer Flanders for your wonderful Easter resources!
I just discovered this yesterday. It’s a study of the scriptures outlining Holy Week with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the current apostles of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Here is the YouTube summary of the video:
“Jesus Christ ascended the hill of Calvary carrying more than a cross—He bore the weight of every sorrow, every sin, and every soul. Mocked, wounded, and seemingly forsaken, the Savior of the world offered a gift beyond all comprehension. His Atonement remains the ultimate expression of divine love. Even in His final moments, Jesus Christ bore a powerful witness. And as the earth trembled and darkness fell, a Roman centurion—standing at the foot of the cross— gave one of the clearest declarations of divinity ever spoken: “Truly this was the Son of God.” That sacred truth continues to be declared today—by apostles, disciples, and the quiet voice of the Spirit to all who seek Him. In this Easter reflection, President Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shares his personal witness of the Savior’s final hours and affirms the reality of His divine mission. He lives. He is the Christ. He is the Redeemer of the world. #GreaterLove“
I love a comment from one of the commenters of the video in YouTube: “Let us remember that not only does He love us at our lowest, He loved us at His lowest.” It’s so amazing! Let us praise Him forever and forever and glory in our Jesus!
See the Book of Mormon Another Testament of Jesus Christ, in 2 Nephi 33:6, where Nephi declares with power, “I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell.”
If you want a beautiful story from President Holland from when he was a little boy, and what it taught him about Jesus and Easter, go here.
Go here to learn about a book on activities, including games and crafts, for the Holy Week.
Go here for a free beautiful banner that says “He is Risen Indeed.”
Go here to my family read-alouds and traditions site for spring, and scroll down under “April” to see even more picture books and family traditions for Easter.
Go here for my list of poetry, songs, and stories for your Family Devotionals to use this spring, even after Easter!
It’s Day #5 of Holy Week, Maundy Thursday or Last Supper Thursday. (I didn’t post yesterday, Wednesday’s tradition, so go here to an old post from years ago for that).
Today’s tradition for a Christ-centered Easter involves contemplation about the scriptures that bring a witness to you of the divinity of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. This tradition is inspired by the disciples of Christ who walked with Him, in His newly resurrected body, on the way to Emmaus. Even though they saw Jesus right before them with their very eyes, they did not know who He was until they felt the Spirit bear witness, because Jesus quoted scripture to them. So what scriptures bring that witness to you? Does your family know what they are? Take this opportunity to talk about them, write them down, and display so your family knows. Thank you Emily Freeman and David Butler, for this inspired tradition. It’s so simple yet profound!
Want to peek at the rest of the Holy Week daily traditions and get prepped? Go here.
Want more Christ-centered Easter ideas? Go here for a simple book full of Holy Week activities for young families, go here for ideas from Lani and John Hilton III, and here for my list of songs, stories, scriptures and poetry for Easter.
Tree of Life Mothering 