Sharing the Truth of Easter with Grandchildren (Part 2)

Written by Deborah Haddix, Writer, Speaker, and Christian Life Coach

Part 1 of this blog shared the first five ideas for passing your legacy of hope in Christ to your grandchildren at Easter. In Part 2, you’ll find five more ideas!

6. Attend a Journey to the Cross/Stations of the Cross.

Invite your grandchildren to attend a Journey to the Cross or Stations of the Cross with you. Many churches host an event of this type during the week leading up to Easter Sunday.

These events are multisensory family experiences that take participants along the path that Jesus walked during His last days on earth. The activities that focus on Jesus’ love and forgiveness demonstrate the real meaning of Easter and teach the life-changing message of the cross in a way that adults and children alike can understand.

7. Incorporate a Symbol.

One way to help your grandchildren learn more about the meaning of Easter is to buy them a cross or another meaningful symbol of the season. As a visual reminder, the symbol you choose should be age-appropriate for your grandchild, whether a wall hanging, item of jewelry, or pocket trinket.

Place your gift in a basket, wrap it up, or put it in the mail. No matter how you present this gift to your grandchild, make sure you include a note or letter explaining why the chosen symbol is significant to you.

8. Engage Older Grandchildren Beyond a Single Day.

As with Christmas, Easter is more than a single day. Spanning fifty days, the Easter season (Eastertide) is celebrated from Easter weekend through Pentecost Sunday.

The reality of Easter is incredible! Think about it. Easter is the time when Christians celebrate Christ risen, death defeated, sins forgiven, and evil overcome. No wonder it needs a season! How could we possibly celebrate such an event in a single day?

Help your older grandchildren grasp this mind-blowing, life-altering truth by inviting them to join you in a reading or study that takes them beyond a single day’s observance and, at the same time, provides you the opportunity to share your hope in Christ.

• Invite them to read and discuss John chapter 19 with you.
• Together search the Bible for evidence that points to Jesus being God.
• Issue a Cross-centered journal challenge to your older grandchildren.
• Purchase copies of a Lenten devotional. Gift the books, age-appropriately, to your grandchildren. Read and discuss them together.

9. Customize Celebrations to Minimize Distance.

Admittedly, face-to-face celebrations with our grandchildren are the best! However, the reality is that many of us are long-distance grandparents.

Please allow me to encourage you not to dismiss the ideas listed above because you don’t “see” your grandchildren at Easter. Instead, permit me to spur you toward meaningful celebrations regardless of the distance that lies between.

Let these ideas spark your imagination:

• Mail an Easter celebration to your grandchildren. Your package may contain an egg coloring kit; Easter-themed plates, cups, and napkins; an appropriate craft; an age-level book on the meaning of Easter; or any of the ideas detailed above. (Think resurrection eggs and scavenger hunts!)
• Buy two copies of the same book. Keep one and mail the other to your grandchild. Once received, schedule a time to read the book together via Skype or FaceTime. Afterward, discuss the book.
• Snail-mail an Easter card to your grandchildren. Include a Bible verse or handwritten note explaining your hope in Christ.
• Package up the ingredients for resurrection cookies or rolls and mail them to your grandchild along with the recipe. Ask your grandchild’s parents to send you a video clip of the baking process or finished product. Discuss the experience and the meaning with your grandchildren afterward.

10. Integrate the Power of Tradition.

One highly effective means for passing a legacy to our grandchildren is observing traditions – the practice of handing down stories, beliefs, and customs from one generation to another to establish and reinforce a strong sense of identity.

This year, take inventory of your family’s Easter traditions. Do you have any? Do the ones you have help your grandchildren come to have a strong sense of identity, both as a family member and as a child of God? Perhaps in taking inventory, you will discover the need to institute some new family traditions or tweak some existing ones.

As you work to integrate the power of tradition into your family’s Easter celebration, there are a couple of important things to keep in mind.

Build in repetition.

Repetition is an essential learning aid. Through it, conscious knowledge and skills are transferred into the subconscious. The teaching power of repetition is without a doubt one of the greatest strengths of tradition.

As you stop to reflect on your own memories, I have no doubt you will find that most of them stem from words or events that were repeated frequently and regularly. Maybe it was even a well-planned scavenger hunt or the baking of resurrection rolls with your grandparents every Easter weekend.

Strive for consistency.

Repetition and consistency go hand in hand. Where repetition is the act of saying or doing something regularly and frequently, consistency is the act of sticking with it or adhering to the practice over the long haul.

Consistency compels us not to quit. The most well-thought-out, meaningful tradition, newly instituted this year but never again or rarely seen, will have little sticking power on the hearts and minds of our grandchildren.

Being consistent with our purpose and observance of our traditions over the days, months, years, and seasons of our lives helps us to more effectively pass our legacy to the next generations.

Whether you live nearby or far away, Easter is an excellent time for sharing your hope in Christ with your grandchildren. All it takes is a little forethought and effort.