Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Spring Bunny
Before I start... I want to preface this post with this... I am not preaching. I am not suggesting that one way is better than another. I am simply sharing a story and a tradition and what works for us as a family...
In a previous post I mentioned the Spring Bunny... and I'm sure that a lot of you were thinking, "What kind of craziness is this?" Or maybe none of you were thinking that... but I'm going to tell you about it anyway. I'm going to explain the craziness that is my family. You see, we love the crazy. We're good at it.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away called Idaho, there was a family with four young children. These children were, in general, good kids. They did, however, seem a little hard in the head at times. You see, if you asked them to tell you about Easter, you would be inundated with stories of rabbits and plastic eggs and candy of every kind! If you asked for more information you'd get a response about baskets and baby chicks and candy of EVERY KIND! And if you persisted, hoping for some kind of REAL understanding about this holiday, you would hear about coloring eggs and new clothes for Sunday and CANDY OF EVERY KIND!! And if you point blank asked them about how Jesus fit in to the Easter holiday - they would stare blankly and then say, "Oh yeah... I forgot about that part... did you know we will get CANDY FOR EASTER?!"
Now, the parents of this family had tried all sorts of things to get their kids to understand what Easter was really about. They had lessons, talked to the kids, read out of scriptures, minimized what was in those baskets, but, as I mentioned before, the kids were a little hard headed and it just didn't seem to be getting through. Bunnies and chocolates filled their hearts and minds rather than the hope and peace that should be brought by understanding Easter.
And so, the totally awesome mom of this family decided that the Easter Bunny was going to disappear. She replaced him with the Spring Bunny - who came the Saturday after the first day of spring. He still brought eggs and candy, but now the focus could change. Easter could be a holiday to remember the Savior again.
There are those who ask, "Well, what about Santa?? Why didn't you get rid of him too??" Here's the funny thing about those totally weird kids... they got Christmas. They understood that a long time ago, a tiny baby came to this earth. And that He grew up and gave us the ultimate gift! Gifts were given in a spirit of love for one another. Somehow, everything about Christmas pointed this family back to Christ. That's not to say that the family wasn't excited about Santa and the presents... but the real message had somehow sunk in.
Not so with Easter. Somehow, it was really hard to tie in baskets, a large rabbit hopping around hiding plastic eggs, and oodles of candy with the Savior and His sacrifice for us. This new idea worked for us....
And it's a tradition that I carry on. Yes, I was one of the hard headed children (how'd ya guess??) and for some reason Easter was never a religious holiday to me as a kid. I just couldn't connect the two together... We don't do our Spring Bunny stuff right after the first day of spring... we do it the day before Easter. And then, Easter Sunday can have a focus on our Savior... and exactly why we call Him that.

19 comments:

Randi said...

Love that. What a great idea. And why is it that Easter really is so much easier to lose than Christmas?

Doran & Jody said...

Too bad my girls are gone now. But what a great idea!

Yvonne said...

That is such a fabulous idea, Melissa. I love it. I will have to pass this on to my daughters-in-law.

Anonymous said...

This past Sunday, I made the HUGE error of saying something about the Easter bunny. (In our house, the Easter bunny brings a new outfit & a little bit of candy.) Well, Boo just kept talking ON & ON & ON about the Easter Bunny! It got to the point that Hero took her out of church and told her that if she mentioned the bunny again, he was going to be making a PERSONAL CALL TO THE BUNNY and tell him not to come visit. It shut her up.... I am NOW in the process of writing up a cute letter "from" the EB and it will say something to the effect that he's sad that kids don't remember what Easter is really about so he's going to be changing his name to the "Spring Bunny." I'll post it when I'm done... :) Sorry this is so long! Oopsa!

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

Brilliant!

Tausha said...

i haven't been by to visit in a while so i must comment on all posts that i have not commented on. First, love the new look. Very springy! Next, Have you ever-what a great idea to make us all stop and smell the roses or read the blog posts whichever. So sorry about Little Bug, I am sure that you can work out, your a fighter and all insurance companies are very scared of upset mothers who know that they are right. The easter idea-is absoulately fabulous. i think that that will be added to the way our family celebrates easter. In fact, I think that it will be put into practice this Saturday. Thanks for all the great ideas and making me stop and smell the roses. Love your blog, think your great. have a fantastic day!

Bonnie the Boss said...

You are doing a great job. Way to go mom. At our house the easter bunny comes on Friday night. Then Sat.night we make tomb cookies and talk about the importance of the holiday.
Bonnie

Bonnie the Boss said...

You are doing a great job. Way to go mom. At our house the easter bunny comes on Friday night. Then Sat.night we make tomb cookies and talk about the importance of the holiday.
Bonnie

... said...

i think that's a wonderful way to celebrate spring and easter. you may have been a hard headed kid, but you're a very smart mama :]

Holly (2 Kids and Tired) said...

We never did do the Easter Bunny. The kids get baskets and we do an egg hunt just for fun, and normally we do it the day before too. This year my husband works Saturday and since we have late church, we'll do it Sunday morning, but it won't take our focus away.

Jillybean said...

I love the Spring Bunny idea!
Last year we decided that from now on, we would have the Bunny bring the baskets on Saturday.

Jillybean said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Busy Bee Lauren said...

That is a fantastic idea! I love the name "spring bunny"!

Anonymous said...

I think the Spring Bunny is a fantastic idea!
And I LOVE your current header!

Nancy Face said...

I really REALLY love that idea! Thank you for telling us about it! :)

flip flop mama said...

What a great idea! I think I'll steal it if it's okay! :)

i said...

Great new tradition. It's funny that after reading the Feb. Ensign I decided to start doing the hunting on Sat. also! I'm glad that I now know what to call that other bunny! On Sunday I decided to put the pieces to a homemade puzzle of Christ, resurrected of course, in eggs and hide them as a fun Sunday thing. Hooray for the spring bunny!

Adena and Greg said...

Thanks for the idea. It's definitely being adopted into our family.

Tonya said...

That is a awesome idea. Hubs and I were just talking about how to get the focus back where it should be. I might just have to steal this.