I like the fact that Holy Week is becoming more widely celebrated in our church (though I suppose as individuals, there were lots of people doing that already—we have been trying to establish Holy Week traditions for over 10 years now). My mother-in-law was on the church Family Home Evening committee when Sam was young in the 1980s, and when she came up with some Easter Week FHE lesson plans, she was told "No—those make it seem too much like we're celebrating Holy Week!" Ha! I wonder why whoever it was was so bothered by that?
Unfortunately, it is hard to celebrate Eastertide "on the same level" as Christmastide when the world around us goes on busy as ever! Right before Christmas, it seems like "public" things slow down in recognition of family parties and so forth. But for Easter week, if we wanted to do anything together as a family, the kids (and me!) had to say no to a bunch of other things. Well, that's okay. We did it. And we had fun together.
Goldie really outdid herself arranging the Easter Crèche for every day of Holy Week. She added a bunch of handmade accessories this year. Here is her Triumphal Entry scene on Palm Sunday. Note the palm leaves and cloaks strewn in the Savior's path.
She also made palm leaf cookies!
On Palm Sunday we made these cute "stained glass" hangings. They are just 3-D printed pictures with raised lines on them. We colored them with sharpie and filled in the spaces with UV resin, and they turned out so pretty! My only complaint is that after they'd hung in the sun for a couple days, some of the colors changed! Must be something to do with the resin? Anyway, they still looked nice hanging in the window!
See though, some of those yellows definitely turned green! For the little kids, I just traced the same pictures on plastic sheet protectors and cut them out, and Gus and Clementine colored on the plastic because I didn't want to waste the 3-D printed ones I bought 😄
On Monday we talked about Jesus cleansing the temple. Goldie made this scene of Him releasing the bunnies from their cages at the temple, and overturning the moneychangers' tables.
We added to the "Names of Christ" wall we have had going for the last couple years. I love all of the new names people made:
Ziggy's rather terrifying "Almighty" (but isn't that the point of "Almighty"? to be a bit terrifying?)
Ziggy's "The Veil"
Gussie's wonderful Empty Tomb pictures (two of them)
Ziggy's "The Most High God," in honor of the song the Primary children sung in church on Palm Sunday ("Hosanna, Blessed be the name of the Most High God")
Goldie's "Mediator"
and Junie's amazing "Living Water" (she updated the one she made a few years ago).
Lots of us copied some of the names we'd made in other years to make a banner for my friend whose husband died recently. I love how the names look all together like this.
On Tuesday we talked about some of Jesus' parables: the lost coin (pictured here by Goldie)…
…the Lost Sheep (or bunny)…
…and the Ten Virgins. Those poor five unwise bunnies with their empty lamps!
That night we made oil lamps out of oven-bake Sculpey. We had done this last year too, but lots of us felt that we could make better lamps this year now that we had had some experience! I don't know if it really helped, though. Some still cracked in the oven. But what DID come out of this was an assortment of TINY oil lamps made by Goldie and Daisy, for us to put in the Easter Crèche scenes next year! Goldie even made a little birdcage and some sacrament bread and all kinds of darling little things. I LOVE the tiny oil lamps.
We made a "stained glass window" with washable paint on our front window. We got the idea from my friend a few years back and have had fun doing it a couple times since!
It looks pretty at different times of day…
…and even at night!
During the days of this week we did a bunch of Spring Cleaning. It was so tiring, especially since Daisy was working (at her job) a lot of the time—her absence was very much felt! But she and Junie did tackle the job of untangling and re-winding alllllll the yarn, which took forever but is SO nice to have done!
Here is Teddy very proud of his cleaned and organized fridge (as well he should be),
…and here is Daisy posing casually in front of her spruced-up pantry. Looks great!
I don't know why I don't have any pictures of Goldie; she was amazing and cleaned by my side faithfully ALL WEEK LONG. I couldn't have done it without her. Without any of them, actually. (Well…to be honest I could have done it without Gus and Clementine. Much better without them, I'm sorry to say.😄 But Ziggy was helpful, now and then!)
It was a very interesting weather week, with snow off and on! It looked so pretty on the daffodils.
Spy Wednesday! We see pictured here the plot to kill Jesus. (That poor bunny with the broken ear always has to play Judas in these little scenes.) We did our usual game of hiding 30 quarters to represent the 30 pieces of silver. The kids can keep the money they find, but they have to spend it on someone else! Malachi hid the quarters, so of course there is one still missing. He is a very tricky hider.
Wednesday is also when we talk about the woman who anointed Jesus with oil. We talk about the difference between her actions—using her scant money to buy precious ointment for Jesus—and Judas' actions, where he criticized her for not giving more to the poor, while at the same time he himself was putting the things of the world above his relationship with and trust in Jesus Christ.
Goldie had the woman hold one of the new tiny oil lamps!
On Spy Wednesday I make "moneybag wontons." Because we're talking about money and which things truly have value.
They are just regular cream cheese wontons, but they're cute folded this way!
I also make olive oil cake, to represent the oil used for the anointing of Jesus. (We do have some spikenard oil somewhere—it smells good but it's not for cooking, of course!) The kids all liked the cake recipe I used this year better than the one I used last year! It is lighter and more lemony. I found the recipe here:
Thursday, of course, is the Last Supper. We have our Passover Dinner (not a real Seder, just our own rather mixed-up combination of traditions).
We put wicks in our oil lamps and lit them! They looked pretty!
(Poor Angus Sheepy is on the table representing the lamb shank that's supposed to go on the Seder Plate)
(Sam's double-sided oil lamp)
A good Passover(ish) dinner! Lamb coconut curry. Unleavened bread. Charoset (apple and nut salad). And tzatziki. And after dinner we always watch "Prince of Egypt."
On Good Friday we had some actual snow! Maybe the biggest or second-biggest snow we've had all year (which isn't saying much because we haven't had many big snowfalls—but still!)
The snow was really pretty on the blossoms!
This tree is called a "Spring Snow apricot"
On Good Friday we always make soft pretzels for breakfast. The three holes in a pretzel represent the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Clementine helped roll and twist the pretzels, and by the end she was attempting to create some very complicated knots! 😄
"Soldier" (/angel) guarding the tomb
On Saturday we dyed our hard-boiled eggs, which I don't have a picture of, and I went to the temple, which always feels like the best way to celebrate Jesus's visit to the Spirit World! The captive spirits set free! O Grave, where is thy victory!
The girls wanted curlers in for Easter Sunday, so I spent quite some time curling ALL THAT HAIR. (And Goldie snuggled with Nutmeg.)
Everyone looked so pretty with ringlets in the next day!
Daisy even curled Clementine's hair!
After church we made our usual Empty Tomb rolls.
Some people were having an Easter Egg Hunt on the hill. It looked fun!
At the beginning of April I put out this "crown of thorns" with toothpicks (dyed dark brown with a little paint) as the thorns. My kids really like doing "straw in the manger" to keep track of their good deeds and make a soft bed for Jesus at Christmastime. So when I saw this idea somewhere I thought they'd like it too. Every time they did something nice or sacrificed something for someone else, they could take out one of the thorns.
Then on Easter, when all the "thorns" were gone, we made it into a beautiful blossom wreath instead!
And here they are side by side. This was a fun thing to do and I think we'll do it again!
All my local nieces and nephews came for dinner, along with Abe and my mom. It was so fun to be all together! And our family is growing. I am a great-aunt to two kids now!
Here is little Jacob, my great-nephew. Sweetie.
And here is little sweet three-week-old baby Eve! We love her!
What a glorious day to celebrate the life and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ! Alleluia, He is risen indeed!
Those are beautiful Holy Week Activities. I've starred your page for inspiration for me next year. This year, for me, was a flop preparing for and celebrating Easter with good intentional work. I plan to do better.
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