EASTER!!

With Christmas, we were SO intentional about talking to Jack about why we were celebrating ...you know, keeping the "Main Thing" the main thing. After talking about it for awhile and conferring with friends who also have young children, we decided it was good to help our kids realize that Christmas is actually one time of the year that's NOT about them. And as a part of that, J and I have decided to be upfront with our children about Santa (Easter Bunny, etc.) not being real, but how it's fun to pretend that they are (my apologies to anyone who is just finding out this truth). :) Following the example of Christ, we want Christmas to be about us giving as a family, and hopefully maybe even be able to do mission trips some during Christmas when the children are a little older.

Anyway, I realized the Tuesday before Easter that we had done NOTHING to introduce Jack to the idea of Easter - which isn't a small task. How do you explain life, death, resurrection and eternal life to a 2-year old? Short answer: for the most part, you don't. However, I also realized that he HAD learned about Easter eggs at school since they were going to have an Easter egg hunt the following Thursday...and we definitely wanted him to know that there was more to it than just eggs and candy! After heading to the local Christian bookstore, I found a couple of little books to help explain it all.

After reading one of them (over and over and over...), Jack is now walking around saying,"What the angel say? Angel say, 'Don't be afraind! (Jack's version of "afraid") Don't cry! Jesus IS ALIVE!'" And he wraps up his monologue with a,"And what Jesus say? Jesus say, 'I LOVE you! Tell E'erbody!'".

Not a bad start to Jack "getting" it, I reckon.