Although any time is the right time to teach our children about God’s love for them, Easter is especially great. Don’t miss this opportunity to establish Easter traditions around the foundation of our faith as Christians.

Here are some meaningful Christ-centered Easter traditions for families:

(This post contains affiliate links. If you choose to use them you help maintain this site at no cost to you. Thank you!)

Resurrection Cookies

Each of the ingredients in resurrection cookies represents part of the Easter story. Establish an Easter tradition of making them together the night before Easter.

Stations of the Cross

Our church sets up stations of the cross and walking through it has become one of our family’s favorite Easter traditions. Each station represents a piece of Christ’s journey to the cross and His love for us. It is a precious time for each of us to reflect on Christ’s love for us and the condition of our hearts.

Look to see if there is something similar in your area. If not, you could set up your own stations of the cross with other families, with each family preparing a station.

Easter Scavenger Hunt

This fun tradition combines Scripture and tangible objects as it walks your family through the Easter story. Your children will enjoy searching for the object that goes with the Scripture and then getting the next clue. Much like the stations of the cross, this Easter scavenger hunt walks you through Jesus’ last hours.

Watch The Passion of the Christ

I wouldn’t recommend watching The Passion of the Christ with younger children but if you have older children it can be very meaningful. It follows Jesus in his last hours so it is very bloody and violent.

Go to a Sunrise Service

It’s been years since I’ve been to a sunrise service. They can be a little chilly here in Colorado. I remember them from my childhood though. The beauty of a new day and the fresh morning air make your heart sing with praise.

Easter Breakfast or Lunch

Enjoy a special Easter breakfast or lunch, or even both, as a family. Perhaps make a recipe that you only make for Easter. Your family will look forward to the dish each year and as they get older it will bring specific Easter memories to mind.

Amon’s Adventure

Read Amon’s Adventure during the month leading up to Easter. This book is in the same series as Jotham’s Journey. Amon is Jotham’s son. Much like Jotham’s journey that leads him to the Savior born as a baby, Amon’s Adventure follows the last days and resurrection of Jesus.

Go to a Good Friday Service

Good Friday is a time for us to reflect on the cost of our sin and our Savior that loved us enough to die for us. By taking time to remember all that Jesus went through, it makes celebrating His resurrection even more joyous.

Learn About the Passover

Study the significance behind Passover. Learning About Biblical Feasts is a wonderful resource for studying the history and meaning of Passover.

Special Faith-Based Gift

Instead of candy and other Easter gifts, give your children gifts to encourage their faith.

He Is Risen

Teach your children to say “He is risen!” when greeting others on Easter and teach them to respond with “He is risen indeed!”. We taught our children this when they were young. Now that our oldest is away at college and we don’t get to spend Easter together, it is sweet to my mama heart to get his text early in the morning saying “He is risen!”.

Read the Easter Story

During the week of Easter read the story of the resurrection and the events leading up to it from the Bible. (Matthew 26-28, Mark 15-16, Luke 22-24, and John 17-20)

Make a Resurrection Garden

Resurrection gardens are beautiful daily reminders during the Easter season of why we celebrate. Everyone can pitch in to make it and if you use grass seeds younger children will enjoy watering it and watching the grass grow. This guest post at Life of a Homeschool Mom walks you through the steps for making a resurrection garden.

Hot Cross Buns

These sweet rolls are recognized by the cross they have cut into the top of them or the cross on top made of icing. They are traditionally eaten on Good Friday.

Empty Tomb Rolls

These rolls are sometimes called resurrection rolls as well. They are easy to prepare and have an empty space in them when baked, representing the empty tomb. This is a great tradition to do with younger children but older children will enjoy the process too. In Our Pond has an easy recipe for resurrection rolls.

I hope you’ve discovered some Easter traditions to help your family focus on Jesus this Easter.

What Christ-centered Easter traditions does your family have?

You also might enjoy:

Christ-Centered Christmas Traditions

Learning About Biblical Feasts as a Family

Family Traditions to Celebrate Together

The post Meaningful Christ-Centered Easter Traditions for Families appeared first on Many Seasons of Motherhood.

This year we have been doing an in-depth Bible study on the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We’ve been learning so many truths while studying the Israelite’s journey. While learning about biblical feasts, I realized how God uses traditions as a reminder for us, a reminder of His faithfulness and His promises.

One of my favorite passages and our heart behind homeschooling is:

Deuteronomy 6:5-7

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Taken from the ESV Bible)

While we are not required to observe them anymore, learning about biblical feasts gives us another opportunity to teach our children about God’s plan of redemption through the precious blood of Christ.

I was recently given a copy of Learning About Biblical Feasts to review. After just studying many of the feasts in our Bible study, I jumped at the opportunity. Although I did receive a copy to review, all thoughts and honest opinions are my own. I hope you will find it helpful in determining if Learning About Biblical Feasts would be a good fit for your family.

Learning About Biblical Feasts is a study for your family to do together, covering 7 biblical feasts.

Biblical Feasts Calendar

It starts off with a biblical feasts calendar. The dates biblical feasts are celebrated change from year to year, so I found the calendar extremely helpful.

Introduction

Next is an introduction explaining how God uses symbols from the feasts to point us to Jesus.

Explanation of the Feast

Then the study begins. Each feast has a page explaining the history and meaning behind it. The explanations are easy to understand and could be read aloud in a few minutes to your family.

How You Can Celebrate Today

The “How You Can Celebrate Today” section is my favorite part of the study. Each feast has its own unique page with Scripture references, ideas for family discussion, and suggestions for family activities. The ideas are practical and you can choose as many as you would like to do with your family.

Questions

Each feast also has a page of 5 questions to help everyone understand the meaning behind the feast. You can discuss them as a family or have older children answer them like a worksheet and then go over them together. The answers are in the back if you need to refer to them.

Notebooking Pages

If your family enjoys notebooking, there are notebooking pages available for each feast. Right now with our teen daughters, I feel like the questions will serve us better, but I look forward to using them when our boys are older.

Final Thoughts

Overall I’m very pleased with Learning About Biblical Feasts. It is a practical study that makes the history of and the meanings behind the feasts easy to understand. Most importantly it shows how each feast points to Jesus.

I look forward to the memories our family will make while learning about biblical feasts throughout the year and am excited to know God more with each one.

If you’re interested in using Learning About Biblical Feasts with your family, you can find it here.

Does your family celebrate or study the biblical feasts? If so, I would love to hear what you do.

You also might enjoy:

Family Traditions to Celebrate Together

5 Ways to Develop a Spirit of Gratitude in Your Family

Christ-Centered Christmas Traditions

The post Learning About Biblical Feasts as a Family appeared first on Many Seasons of Motherhood.

Do you ever feel like your family is running all over the place? When you are all home do you feel like you still aren’t having quality time together? If so, I totally get it. Somehow the older our children get the faster life seems to fly by. The good news is that there are simple ways to build a strong family even in the midst of busy seasons.

A close-knit family doesn’t just happen though, you have to be intentional. Yes, life is busy. Your family might have multiple work and sports schedules that you are balancing, plus there are commitments to church, extended family, and other activities. Even with all of that, there should be time at some point during the week that you can be together as family. You may have to be creative; “family night” might be Saturday morning or Sunday after church, but you can be intentional for the sake of your family.

Here are 10 simple ways to build a strong family to help you:

Eat Together

As often as possible, try to have at least one family meal together, without electronic distractions. On the days you just can’t be together for dinner, could you eat breakfast together instead? Sitting down together, looking into each other’s eyes, and discussing the events of the day makes you feel connected to one another.

Conversation Starters

Another way to spark discussion over dinner or even in the car on your way to the next event is with conversation starters. A conversation starter is just a question or simple statement used to start a dialogue. Read one to your family and delight in the conversation that follows. You’ll learn a lot about each other and possibly enjoy some laughs too.

Watch a TV Series Together

Not the advice you expected? Even TV can sometimes be beneficial. Choosing a series on Netflix or another program to watch as a family can actually bring you closer together. It gives you a common interest to discuss and even leaves everyone looking forward to the next time you sit down together to watch it.

Read Aloud

Just like watching a show brings you closer together so can reading a book out loud. You could even listen to an audio book in the car to make the most of time spent away from home.

Game Nights

The classic family game night should never be overlooked. Playing games is a great way to make memories and strengthen relationships. Even if some of your family is super competitive there are cooperative games that encourage everyone to work as a team in order to win. If you need inspiration, check out some of our family’s favorite games to play.

Chores

They have to get done so you might as well make the most of it. Work on chores in the same room together or spend quality time cleaning the kitchen with a different family member each night. Some great conversations can happen over washing the dishes.

Be Active Together

Most of us need to be more active, why not get moving together? Our family has made a commitment to doing something active each week this year. It has been more fun than any of us had anticipated. Here is a list of ideas to get your family started being active together too.

Kindness Challenge

There are a few ways you can do a kindness challenge. Here is a simple one for times you are in a busy season, but still want your family to be caring towards one another. Have each family member draw a name of another family member, being sure to keep the name they drew a secret. Then during the week each family member should do something kind for the person they drew without getting caught or as a surprise. Ideas could be:

• Making their bed.
• Packing their lunch.
• Leaving them a nice note to find.
• Doing one of their chores.

Kindness challenges are a wonderful way to build a strong family and encourage your children to think about others.

Reminisce Together

Look through photos or watch family videos as you talk about special memories your family has made.

Day Trip

Take a day trip to a local location. You could:

• Go on a hike.
• Tour a local factory.
• Go for a scenic drive.
• Visit a tourist attraction.

What are some ways you are intentional to build a strong family?

You also might enjoy:

5 Ways to Develop a Spirit of Gratitude in Your Family

Family Traditions to Celebrate Together

365 Conversation Starters

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Are you wanting to get healthier as a family? Then join our family in the Family Health Challenge! For the year of 2019 we are completing weekly family health challenges and sharing them with you. Your family can do the same challenges or you can tweak them to fit your family’s needs. The best part is you’ll be making precious family memories while getting healthier together.

We’ll be sharing the challenges on our YouTube channel and updating the list here each week, so be sure to check back for more challenges.

(This post contains affiliate links – if you use them you help maintain this site at no cost to you. Thank you!)

Weekly Family Health Challenges

Week 1: How Long Challenge – How long does it take each family member to run a certain distance? How long can each family member do a plank or a wall sit?

Week 2: 60 Second Challenge – How many burpees and sit-ups can each family member do in 60 seconds?

Week 3: Just Dance Challenge – Play Just Dance together. It’s aerobics with a fun twist. I had a blast with this challenge! If you aren’t familiar with Just Dance, it is a motion-based dancing video game. You try to match the dance moves in perfect sync and earn more points the better you do. There are multiple Just Dance games to choose from and each one has current hits plus older hit songs too. Just so you’re aware, the songs are all secular.

Week 4: Football Agility Course – Set up an agility course with some cones or other markers. Finish with a target to throw the football at.

Week 5: Tower of Fitness – This was a fun twist on a classic game. You’ll need Jenga or a similar block tower game and the Tower of Fitness printable. The Tower of Fitness is our favorite challenge so far, we hope your family enjoys it too.

Week 6: Team Stairs Challenge – Divide your family into teams. Each team then takes a turn going up and down stairs, tagging in their teammate when they need a break. Which team can complete the most sets of stairs in 2 minutes?

Do you have any ideas for the weekly family health challenges? Share them with us in the comments!

You also might enjoy:

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Do you have a goal to get in shape or start making better food choices? If you do, you are not alone. Focusing on one’s health is a common goal many people share, myself included. This year I’m re-evaluating how I approach getting into shape though, because I want to instill healthier habits in my children too. Which is where the Family Health Challenge enters.

What is the Family Health Challenge?

It’s basically a commitment that your family makes to each other to make changes towards a healthy lifestyle, but it is not your typical diet and exercise program. It’s about having fun and making memories with your family all while becoming healthier.

The Family Health Challenge focuses on making better choices, being active, and spending time together. It’s that last part, spending time together, that makes the Family Health Challenge exciting.

Weekly Challenges

For the entire year of 2019, my family has committed to doing a challenge each week. Those challenges will usually be physical to push us out of our comfort zone and help us work towards getting in better shape. We just completed our first challenge of the year, and some things happened that I hadn’t expected:

• My big kids were really excited about it.
• I knew I wasn’t in shape, but I was surprised how much I had to push myself. It wasn’t easy.
• We laughed together. Yes, I had hoped to make family memories, but I hadn’t expected so much laughter during physical challenges.
• The rest of the day everyone, including my husband, kept talking about how much fun they had.

Are you interested in seeing the challenges?

I shared the challenge on our YouTube channel and each week we’ll be documenting the weekly challenge. If you think the Family Health Challenge sounds like a fun way to make memories with your family, please join us! You could choose to follow along and do the same challenges or just check in for encouragement and come up with your own challenges.

Here is the link to our YouTube channel. If you would like to see how our Family Health Challenge plays out this year, be sure to subscribe.

Re-Focus on Your Family’s Health

If you would like more encouragement and ideas on how to re-focus on your family’s health this year be sure to head over to Little House in the Cove where I had the opportunity to share more. You’ll find more information about the weekly health challenges, plus meal planning tips.

Do you have ideas for challenges our family could do together? If so, I would love to hear your ideas!

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During this time of year, we look back at all the special memories we have made this past year and look forward to the ones to come in the new year. A new year is an opportunity to be intentional about making more of those family memories that we hold so closely to our hearts. New Year’s traditions will help your family start the year off right, making precious memories from the very beginning of the year.

Ideas for New Year’s Traditions to Celebrate with Your Family:

Goals

Share your goals for the new year with one another.

You could even video everyone sharing their goals. Then watch it next New Year’s.

Slideshow

Make a video slideshow of pictures from last year and watch it as a family. Reminiscing over the past year together. Do you have a YouTube account? You can even upload your video to YouTube and share it with friends and family. If you’re concerned about privacy, there is an unlisted setting that allows you to share the link to the video but keeps your video from being searched on YouTube, just be sure to click it.

We’ve been doing this for years. I always choose songs that meant something to us that year, as well, to accompany the pictures.

Family Yearbook

Similar to the video, you could make a family yearbook of pictures to look through together. Online photo printing services usually have great sales during December.

My mom actually does this for her children. We all live in different parts of the state so we only get together a couple times a year. She takes lots of photos when that happens, but she also collects photos from everyone’s daily lives and happenings and puts a big book together for all of us. It really makes us feel connected and we all are so thankful to have the memories we made recorded.

Game Night

New Year’s Eve is the perfect time for a family game night! Click here for some family game night ideas.

Movie Marathon

If your family isn’t prone to falling asleep during movies or making it to midnight isn’t number one on your list, then have a movie marathon.

Stay Up

See who can stay up the latest. This is one competition I don’t care about winning. My children on the other hand, have tried for years to stay up all night. It’s a sibling tradition they look forward to. They have come close, but so far haven’t made it. 

Interviews

Each family member could fill out a questionnaire and compare how their answers change from year to year.

If you are able to, video the interviews. You’ll not only capture how each person’s answers change, but the way they look and how their voices have changed too.

Does your family have any New Year’s Traditions? If so, I would love to hear about them!

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Christmas and competition may not be words we usually think of together during this joyful season. Perhaps those words together make you picture neighbors competing over Christmas lights? If that is the case, I’m here to assure you competitions can still be fun this time of year too. Here are some ideas for Christmas competitions you can enjoy with your friends and family:

Graham Cracker Houses

Think gingerbread houses on a much smaller scale.

• First, give each contestant a plate with 6 graham cracker squares on it.
• Set out bowls of candy and other decorations in a central location.
• Then, give each contestant a bowl of icing and something to spread it with.
• Finally, set them loose and let the fun begin.
• When everyone has finished, either choose a designated judge or have everyone vote to see who has the best design.

Cookie Competition Party

We enjoy this Christmas competition because it usually doubles as a cookie exchange.

• Have each participant bring a certain amount of cookies. (Between 2 – 4 dozen depending on how many are participating and the amount of cookies you would like to exchange.)
• Choose a designated judge or have each person vote for best design and best tasting cookie.
• Then divide up the cookies so everyone takes home a sampling of each kind.

Food Challenge

Wondering what to serve at a party? Have a competition! Let your guests know you’ll be having a contest.

Who makes the best:

• Appetizer
• Dip
• Dessert
• Salsa
• Chili

Photo Scavenger Hunt

This is a wonderful way to include family that lives away. First, come up with a list of photo ideas for your contest. Next, invite people to participate. Then, send them the list and remind them they need to be in the pictures too.

• Funny photo
• Festive photo
• Nativity
• Christmas tree
• Ugly sweater picture
• Baking cookies
• Looking at Christmas lights
• Reading a book
• Shopping
• Wrapping presents
• Watching a Christmas movie

Start a group message for everyone participating and enjoy seeing the pictures pour in. This has been a special way to stay connected with our college student. I think we may do a photo scavenger hunt during other times of the year as well.

Ugly Christmas Sweater

When it comes to Christmas competitions, we can’t leave out the Ugly Christmas Sweater contest. This one can be hilarious!

Does your family have any Christmas competitions? Tell us about them in the comments.

You also might enjoy:

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Does your family enjoy movie nights? If so, they’ll love these Christmas traditions! Here are some ideas for your Christmas family movie night:

Christmas Movie Countdown

Gather up all the Christmas movies you own or buy some of your favorites. Then wrap them individually and set them near your TV. Now you’re set to experience a Christmas family movie night on evenings when everyone is home. Just unwrap a movie, cuddle up with your family, and relax together.

You could also do something similar with Netflix, Amazon Prime, or something you recorded.  Just write the movies you hope to watch on pieces of paper, fold them up, and put them in a jar. Then on movie night, just have someone draw the Christmas movie for the evening.

Themed Movie Night

Choose one your family’s favorite movies and have a themed dinner to go along with your Christmas movie night. Here are some fun ideas:

A Christmas Story

Have Chinese takeout for dinner and fudge for dessert.

Elf

Make spaghetti for dinner with syrup as an optional topping, of course. Top the evening off with snowball cookies for dessert.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Dine on a green themed dinner. Maybe roast beef wraps made with spinach tortillas and a side of guacamole and chips. Green hearts made from Rice Krispies would be a fun dessert.

Our family likes to have Grinch Punch when we have our Grinch movie night.

Home Alone

Pizza for dinner and deluxe ice cream sundaes! I can’t stomach the thought of drinking milk while eating my pizza, but if you want to stay true to the movie, go for it.

It’s a Wonderful Life

Ahhh, my all time favorite Christmas movie. Serve rotisserie chicken for dinner and have chocolate ice cream with coconut sprinkled on top for dessert.

Does your family enjoy Christmas movies? Which ones are a must for your family movie nights this Christmas season?

You also might enjoy:

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Ah, Christmas cookies, one of my favorite Christmas traditions! While baking and eating them can be quite a treat. The actual process of making them, especially with little helpers, isn’t always easy. Over the years, I’ve learned some tips for making Christmas cookies a little easier and I want to share them with you.

Make the dough in advance.

When making cut out cookies, like sugar cookies or gingerbread, it’s especially helpful to make the dough the day before and chill it in the fridge overnight. Then set it out for 30 minutes to soften some before rolling it out.

Freeze cookie dough when you can.

Drop cookies, like chocolate chip and oatmeal, are great for the freezer. Plus you can prepare them a few weeks before the Christmas season gets too busy. Then you just have to pull them out of the freezer and bake them when you need them.

• Prepare the dough as you usually would.
• Then drop the dough by the spoonful onto a cookie sheet or stoneware.
• Put the cookies into the freezer for about 15 minutes.
• Next, remove the cookies from the freezer and place the balls into freezer bags. (16 cookie balls usually fit in a quart size freezer bag.)
• Write on the bag the baking temperature and how long the cookies should bake.

I’ve had great success freezing snickerdoodles and snowballs too.

Prepare a cookie decorating station for your little ones.

• Lay out wax paper or large cutting mats, as a surface for your child to work on.
• Put the icing in little icing bottles. They are perfect for small hands and help contain the mess. Plus they are great for building fine motor skills.
• Most of us have experienced what happens when a young child gets hold of a container of sprinkles. Use cupcake liners to hold sprinkles and candies, to help limit the amount that can end up on one cookie.
• Ice the cut out cookies yourself; then let them dry. Once they are completely dry, set them out with some food coloring markers and let your little artists take over.

Do you have any tips for making Christmas cookies? I love learning new tips; please share your best tips with us!

You also might enjoy:

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Many traditions we celebrate have a special meaning behind them or are used to pass on values to our children. On the other hand, sometimes traditions are just for fun. So here are some “just for fun” Christmas traditions:

(Some of the links in this article are affiliate links – if you use them you help support this site at no cost to you. Thank you!)

Buddy

Have you seen the movie, Elf?  Our family doesn’t celebrate Santa, but we will watch some of the Christmas movies that involve stories of him. Our children understand he is a pretend character, much like the other movies they watch that also have pretend characters. That being said, our family thinks ‘Buddy’ from the movie, Elf, is hilarious!

I’m sure you have also heard of ‘Elf on the Shelf.’ Well, when I saw all the ways people were brightening their kids days with that elf, I had to get in on the action. So… I found an adorable elf at Hobby Lobby, because that Elf on the Shelf is kind of creepy. Am I right?

Anyway, we named our elf, Buddy. He doesn’t “watch” our children. They know it’s mom that sets him up and they know it’s mom that forgets to do anything with him sometimes too. We’ve had a lot of fun with him over the years though.

Christmas Dishes

Another “just for fun” Christmas tradition we have is using Christmas dishes. Usually starting December 1st we begin using our special dishes. My mom recently passed down an entire set of Christmas dishes to us. Before that I had purchased random Christmas plates at the thrift store. We still use those, as well, because the different designs are fun too.

We also have a collection of plastic Christmas themed cups we have accumulated over the years. You can find these cups for less than a dollar and many have Christmas movie themes.

I know it’s a simple tradition, but somehow eating on different plates and drinking from cute cups makes an ordinary meal significant.

Decorations

There are many decorations that we use that have a significant meaning, but there are also those that are “just for fun.” Rather you have a tradition of making decorations each year or a tradition of decorating the house together, soak in those moments with your children.

Traditions are about making memories. They don’t always have to have a special meaning. Enjoy some “just for fun” Christmas traditions. Treasure the smiles and laughter of your precious family this season.

What “just for fun” Christmas traditions does your family have? I would love to hear about them!

You also might enjoy:

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