The Book of New Family Traditions (31 page)

Sunrise Bonfire

Light is a symbol of Jesus, and “seeing the light” figures in many hymns. At dawn, or as early as you can wake the family, walk outside and make or bring a light of some kind. You may choose to make a small “bonfire” in your yard (or even your outdoor grill), or if it’s still dark, have everyone bring a flashlight. Read from the book of Luke about the resurrection, and break your fast with sweet rolls, perhaps some hot cross buns. These buns, often decorated on top with a cross made of white frosting, are traditionally eaten on Good Friday, the Friday before Easter.

Washing Hands

Because Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, bring a bowl of water, soap, and a towel to the table one night at dinner and have family members wash one another’s hands, with care and tenderness. Talk about what it means to be a disciple, and the importance of being humble, even as a leader.

Fasting Ritual

Fasting isn’t a good idea for small children, but having occasional meals when the family eats less than usual is one way to ritually experience fasting. The next night, talk about whether everybody was a bit hungry when they went to bed, and what that felt like. One family tried an experiment of computing how much money a family their size would get for food for a week if they were on welfare, spending only that much money at the supermarket and eating only that food for the week.

Handmade Crosses

Using simple twigs from your backyard and twine, have each member of the family fashion a simple cross. Each person can keep a cross on their bedside table, then hold it while praying and thinking about the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

Peep Destruction

Sarah Stengle of Princeton, the mother who created a “Half-Baked Party” (see Chapter 3) when her daughter left high school early, also has a creative way to celebrate Easter. A divorced mother of two girls, Sarah says when the girls were very young, they started taking the marshmallow Peeps out of their Easter baskets and creating little tableaus, which got more elaborate each year. “One year, it was a scene with plastic horses and the Peeps were warriors, and we gave them little plastic swords (cocktail toothpicks).”

Eventually, the tradition evolved so that a photojournalist friend of Sarah’s would record the Peep scenes, and the girls’ cousins would come help with the building. And often, part of the fun became sticking the creations in the microwave, then nibbling on the melted mass. They began calling the ritual “Peep Destruction.”

“This year we did a river scene with boats and a prison made from sugar cubes and marshmallows,” says Sarah. “We have often melted these creations in the microwave and eaten them with chopsticks. It is sooooo stupid, but we really have so much fun!”

Candle Ritual

Julie Young had just moved and needed a simple ritual. For the week leading up to Easter, she gathered pretty candles and set them up in the living room. Right before bedtime, she would turn out the lights, light the candles, and read about “the events of Jesus’s last week on earth” from a book called
The Book of God for Children
. Each child was allowed to blow out one candle before going up to bed.

Garden Celebration

Rain Mako in Arkansas celebrates Easter with her family as the earth’s rebirth. They put a brightly colored flag at each of the compass points in the family garden, and the flag colors represent the four elements of earth (brown), air (blue), fire (red), and water (white). As they drive in the four stakes, they talk about how these elements are required by all living things. The family members dress up in party clothes, beat drums, and sing songs about spring.

Creative Egg Hunts

To avoid fighting over eggs, designate a color for each child and make sure to hide the same number of each color. Some people add extra eggs that are specially marked with an “ X” or a sticker: Anyone finding those eggs gets a special treat or prize. Betsy Muir’s family in California has big family Easter celebrations with a double hunt: After all the plastic eggs are found the first time, they’re re-hidden in the house, often stashed somewhere on one of the grownups, for instance, in a pocket, shoe, or handbag. When Letitia Suk’s children got too old for egg hunts, or so they said, she wasn’t ready to end the ritual, so instead of putting candy inside the plastic eggs she hid outdoors, she included gift certificates (in modest amounts like $5 or $10) to her children’s favorite retailers. Suddenly, they were eager for the hunt once more! One family makes finding the Easter baskets more fun by hiding them in the house but attaching long ribbons to them: The kids wake up to find one end tied to the foot of their bed, then have to follow it to the basket.

Egg-Cracking Rituals: Cascarones

Many cultures, among them Greek, French, Lithuanian, and Mexican, have an Easter tradition of cracking eggs together. Andrea Majewski, whose background is Polish and Lithuanian, calls this “bucking eggs,” and her family does it with dyed, hard-boiled eggs. They have contests on Easter and smash their own against another person’s egg.

Vicki Adkins is Mexican American and grew up with cascarones, which are hollowed out eggshells, stuffed with confetti. The open end is sealed with brightly colored tissue paper, secured with a dab of glue. Her family hides these, then after the egg hunt, they smash them on each other’s heads! That may sound painful or mean, but it’s more like a confetti shower than getting punched with food. Some-I times
cascarones
are also made on such Mexican holidays as Day of the Dead and Cinco de Mayo. When I first started writing about cascarones, they weren’t widely known in this country, but now there is a Wikipedia entry on them, and you can search for how-to videos on YouTube. I’ve even seen some cascarones packed in egg cartons for sale on Amazon .com, but it’s more fun to make your own.

Tip:
If you want to find everything from games and crafts to the historical and religious background about the holiday, go to Holidays.net/Easter. And if it’s mostly games you want, there is
EasterFun.com
.

Bunny Tracks

Susan Wagoner and her husband in Charlottesville, Virginia, have a tradition of going out to homes in their neighborhood with kids (“or the young at heart”), to sift flour or powdered sugar over a stencil they made that looks like large bunny footprints. They leave a trail snaking up to the front door. They then throw a few Tootsie Rolls on the mat and a carrot with a leafy top still attached. “Kids loving seeing the Easter Bunny’s evidence left behind,” says Susan.

Kindness Wreath

Hang a plain wreath on your front door. About ten days before Easter, give each family member about ten brightly colored ribbons about eight inches long. You decide whether to give each person one color, or just let them grab what they like. Until Easter, every time a person performs an act of kindness for someone else (not just a family relation, but also friends, schoolmates, a stranger who needs help at the store, for example), he or she gets to tie on another ribbon. This will focus everyone’s attention on doing good deeds and will result in a prettier and fuller wreath as the days pass. (Adapted from “Family Traditions for Easter,” by Susie Cortright, from
ezinearticles.com
.)

April: Celebrate National Poetry Month

For little kids, poetry is indispensable and fun. They seem to be born with rhythm: Kids love a beat, and they’re always banging words together. I think it’s great to raise kids who don’t think of poetry as intimidating or fussy. And in this age of hip-hop, why should they?

National Poetry Month was launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, and the organization runs a fantastic website to help you celebrate. Go to
Poets.org
for lots of fun activities, and check out some good poetry anthologies from your local library.

Five Ways to Celebrate at Your House

1. Read a poem aloud every day during April at dinner or bedtime. They can be short, funny poems mostly, and you can save a few longer ones for the weekends. You can find them online, or just read from a few favorite poetry books.

2. Organize a Family Poetry Slam and have every member of the family “perform” several favorite poems, written by themselves or any writer they choose.

3. Considering how popular rap music is, why not write a family rap together? Don’t forget the dance moves and hand motions. Don’t have a real drum set? Tap on pots and tables to make a background beat.

4. Pick out some really short nonsense poems you like and write them in colored chalk on your driveway and in the street.

5. Put a poem in your child’s lunch box or backpack every day.

So you know how much fun you’ll have celebrating Poetry Month, here’s one to start you out:

“My Robot”

by Douglas Florian, from his collection Bing
Bang Boing

I have a robot
Do the dishes,
Phone my friends,
Bone the fishes.
Rub my back,
Scrub the floors;
Mop the kitchen,
Open doors.
Do my homework,
Make my bed;
Catch my colds,
Scratch my head.
Walk the dog,
Feed the cats;
Hit my sister,
Knit me hats.
Do my laundry,
Clean my room;
(Boy, he’s handy
With a broom.)
Comb my hair,
Darn my socks;
Find my lost toys,
Wind my clocks.
Mix me milk shakes,
Fix my bike;
Buy me all
The things I like.
Grill me hot dogs,
Guard my home—
Who do you think
Wrote this poem?

Three Terrific Poet’s Websites

ShelSilverstein.com
is incredibly interactive. His famous line drawings come alive, and the site is full of silly sounds. There is a special section for kids that includes games and puzzles, so they can do things like finish a poem he started.

JackPrelutsky.com
features his own poems, but also has tips for parents on how to read to children. He has written many great poetry books for kids, and has edited some anthologies. One of the fun poems he includes on the site is called “My Mother Says I’m Sickening” and it’s about bad table manners.

Douglas Florian is another awesome poet, and his blog offers samples of his poems, plus others he loves. He’s done many books that are filled with humor, clever wordplay, and his wonderful illustrations. Go to
FlorianCafe.blogspot.com
.

Here’s a neat idea: If you send text messages regularly, try to send at least one a day during April that rhymes!

And if you are itching to download a poetry app, go to
Poets.org
and order the Poem Flow app, which for a small sum will deliver a poem a day to your smartphone or other device. Or go to the iTunes store and download the free app from the Poetry Foundation called, simply, Poetry.

Arbor Day

National Arbor Day has been celebrated since 1872 and is observed in most states on the last Friday in April. Planting trees is a fabulous activity for families and a great opportunity to create hands-on environmental awareness. Trees produce oxygen, moderate the temperature, diminish smog, and provide a home for wildlife. Any kid can help dig a hole, stick in a sapling, spread the roots, fill with dirt and tamp it down, and pour water on it.

You can always go to the nearest nursery and buy young trees, but if you’re organized enough to plan ahead, an alternative is the National Arbor Day Foundation. For a $10 donation, the nonprofit group will mail you ten young trees, a variety of types that will thrive in your part of the country. They will look like dead twigs when they arrive, only about a foot long, but they’ll come with planting instructions and your kids can watch them grow, year by year. The toll-free number for the Arbor Day Foundation is 888—448—7337, and their website is
www.arborday.org
.

A Scrapbook for, Trees

Tarrant Figlio has been celebrating Arbor Day with her kids for years, and they have developed some special rituals. “On Arbor Day, we always plant a tree together as a family. I tell the kids how special trees are and we talk about how birds nest and how paper is made from trees. They are sort of like mini-science lessons.” Tarrant’s children also keep a special scrapbook for their Arbor Day trees, and every year they measure each tree, count branches, and take a photograph. Because the picture includes the kids, they can look back and see how they grew, alongside their trees.