Our kids are getting impressionable. People are starting to say at the check-out line "is the Easter bunny coming to your house?" As you go through the mall you see Santa and try to explain. And before I know it she'll be losing those pearly whites and asking for my life savings.
What things were done for me? How about for my spouse? And my friends? What are my cousins doing? What have my friends with older kids been doing all these years? What do these bloggers do? ...And I pick up the phone to talk to my mom or I sit down and listen to my mother in law with new ears.
Just like our parents and their parents {We are both blessed with a heritage that shares our same beliefs- Christ followers for us to now follow}, we are feeling a need to be different and be clear on what these holidays are all about. But we aren't ones to skip out on a party or deprive a kid... and neither were our folks.
It was the day before Easter and my in-laws were hosting a fun little Egg Hunt for Hayley and her friends. {What a lucky little grand-daughter} My mom-in-law asked to share a little bit about why we hunt for eggs... and I was all "YES please"... because I could not bring to mind why we did that again even though I did it every year and my dad had been both minister and easter bunny on more than one occasion!
Perhaps my biggest disadvantage to all of this holiday fuss was that celebrating in Africa removed us from the general celebration and it was more of a what-mom-and-dad-made-it thing... as well as an "American" event usually in which we got together with other Americans and wore American clothes and ate American food and that's what I thought was so fantastic at the time.
And for Christmas one of my favourite memories NOW though I doubt I fully appreciated it at the time was that year mom and dad had friends over for communion. And my least favourite Christmas memory was coming around the corner at a French convenient store in Dakar to a tall, skinny, very dark man in a red Santa suit with a thin white plastic beard. I bet that man didn't know that the real reason's better.
So Saturday I learned a thing or two that I didn't know. And I expect that these next few years of Hayley's "firsts" will bring a lot of discovering my way.
We did give her an Easter basket & the hunt was tons of fun. The eggs represent new life. Perhaps Easter will be a bit of a Spring Celebration. Jesus' new life, our new life, & the world coming to new life ever revealing God's tapestry of love to us.
We're searching for some unique and some classic... and sticking to the real reason for each special season: Christ, his love, God, his blessings, we the receivers... learning and teaching to live life with open hands. May we take each occasion to honour him and enjoy our heritage as we make new memories to keep.
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