Easter and Toast

I admit it...Darren and I are terrible parents.  We aren't planning on buying our daughter ANYTHING for Easter.  No chocolate, no candy, no dress, no toys....nope...nada...zilch (well, I did buy her bunny-ear hair clips about 3 months ago, but they were only $4 and she's already had them in her hair).  Why deprive my child of these things?  Isn't this going to affect her when she gets older?  I mean, what will the other kids think?

Let me explain.  My husband's family didn't give anything special for Easter - candy might have been in the house, but it wasn't a big "to-do".   My own parents did buy my sister and I Easter goodies for the special occasion. We always got an Easter basket filled with a chocolate bunny, a cream egg, Jelly beans, foil wrapped chocolate eggs, and those yummy sugar eggs that are white in the middle, and colored candy on the outside.  Every year, the same thing, same basket...and we loved it.  But it wasn't the focus of the day. Now, I know that not everyone who reads this is going to have the same belief system as my family and I share, but  for us, Easter weekend is a reflection and celebration time for our faith.

I remember growing up and going to our Good Friday Service at church.  I don't remember if we always did it the same way every year, but one year while the accounts of Christ's crucifixion were being read from the Bible, they would extinguish a candle one by one, until we were all sitting in the dark.  It was a dark day.  God made the ultimate sacrifice for us, so that our world would no longer be broken.  Christ was crucified, so that our relationship with God could be restored.  I remember that we all left the service in the dark...but with anticipation for Sunday morning...because with Sunday, came hope.

Of course I was excited about getting chocolate on Sunday morning, but that isn't what I remember most.  I remember toast....yep, toast...and a lot of it.  You see, every Easter Sunday morning we would get up while it was dark, and go to the church for our Easter Sunrise Service.  My family was in charge of making the breakfast that our church family would eat together, and my job was making toast (at least one of the years it was) Maybe part of it was because we did it together as a family, but part of it was because I was excited about the meaning of the day.  Our church family would all gather together, in that same dark sanctuary we had all left on Good Friday...and a single candle was lit.  The light from the Christ Candle filled the room, and we all said together "He is risen, He is risen indeed!  He is risen, He is risen indeed!  He is risen, He is risen indeed!  Hallelujah!".

This is one of my fondest childhood memories.  I was not scarred for life by not receiving massive amounts of Easter gifts and candy.  I didn't lose out on my childhood.  I was not brainwashed into believing what my parents believed or what I was told.  I believed, and I still do.

When Jaelyn gets a little older, we will do Easter egg hunts, and she will get chocolate and candy.  But she will also hear about the sacrifice that was made for her.  Today, as a family, we are reflecting on God's incredible love for us, and why such an event happened.  Sunday, we will celebrate the risen Saviour.

And I might just eat some toast.