Monday, March 22, 2010

Spring Baskets




Every year on the first day of Spring we give our children what we call "spring baskets". I grew up getting an Easter Basket each year and loving that tradition!! I wanted to do a similar tradition with our children, but didn't want it to become what Resurrection Sunday was all about. So, I started thinking about ways that I could make it work. Eggs, rabbits, chickens, and flowers. . . all of those things are all about the Spring. Those things have nothing at all to do with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, I decided that we would give them "Spring Baskets" each year as a fun first day of Spring activity. It has worked out really well for our family. I enjoy shopping for fun little toys to put in their baskets and I don't have to spend weeks trying to minimize the eggs and baskets in order to get them to focus on Jesus.

A couple of facts:
1. We hide the baskets and they search for them one by one in order of age from the youngest to the oldest. After each one finds their basket, we all watch as he looks through his basket. Then the next child gets to go on the search for his basket.
2. The children know that mommy and daddy give them their baskets.

5 comments:

  1. OH MY WORD, I LOVE this idea!!!!! Oh, Larissa, I am so glad you blogged about this. I have so much fun putting together Lana's basket each year, but it breaks my heart to have her look through it on Easter morning for the very reasons you listed above. I know I missed the first day of spring, but we're going to do spring baskets this week. This will be a new tradition for us...so grateful for this idea!
    Rachael Davis

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  2. We did that this year too! Great minds must think alike!

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  3. That is one of the reasons that I blogged about this, Rachael. I've had a few people ask me what we do for "Easter", and I thought it would be a good idea to blog about this for those that are looking for a way to keep the secular out. We've had a lot of fun with it! I hope you enjoy the tradition as much as we have!

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  4. I love it. I wish I had seen this when you first posted it. I like Easter baskets, but not all the secular stuff that goes with it. I think we'll start doing a Spring Basket as well :)

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