The Easter Idea Place

by Susie Cortright

Family traditions connect us to past and future generations. They provide meaning and connection, as well as a sense of ritual and comfort. And they can create – and help to preserve – some of life’s most moving moments.

Easter traditions can help to usher in a season of love, rejuvenation, and abundance. Here are seven ideas for sharing the sweetness of this special season:

- Start a kindness wreath for your doorway. For the week of Easter, give each family member 10 or more ribbons in bright spring colors. Each time a family member reaches out to someone in kindness during the week, they simply tie another ribbon onto the wreath.

- Ask your children to make a special drawing or a collage that depicts what Easter means for them. After you display them during the Easter season, scan them or take a photo and record the artwork in a special journal or album for a treasured Easter keepsake.

- Create a Garden Journal. Cover a composition book with spring patterned papers or photos/clippings of your favorite flowers. Document the process of creating your family garden this year. Make sure to include photos of your family members digging in the dirt. Record their favorite flowers and their favorite part of working in the garden…and, of course, lots of journaling and flower pressings.

- Fill an Easter basket with cheerful messages, handmade cards, or simple gifts. Then leave the basket anonymously on a friend’s doorstep.

- If you have young children, video- or audio-tape them singing a fun seasonal song. Tapes of “Here comes peter cottontail” and “Little Bunny Foo Foo” can make treasured mementos. Share the tapes with distant family and friends.

- When it’s time for your Easter brunch or Easter dinner, give each guest a 6×6 sheet of cardstock and ask them to handwrite a couple of special messages for the holiday…perhaps ways they are feeling renewed or grateful in their lives. Snap a photo of each guest and create a quick and simple 6×6 mini-album as a keepsake featuring one page for each guest (with their photo and contribution.)

- Make some handmade Easter greeting cards to send to family and friends. Or renew friendships by hostessing a card-making party where each guest makes 5 to 10 friendship cards. Make a point to send out five cards this spring to people with whom you would like to rejuvenate a relationship.

This holiday, may you embrace and celebrate the beauty that comes into our lives through our family and friends. (And enjoy lots of chocolate!)

Susie Cortright is the founder of momscape.com – http://www.momscape.com and Momscape’s Scrapbooking Playground – http://www.momscape.com/scrapbooking – devoted to helping visitors record and preserve their cherished memories.

Susie also trains and supports new scrapbooking instructors with a new and rapidly- growing direct sales scrapbooking company. Find out how to join her team here: http://www.momscape.com/scrapbooking/consultant

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Susie_Cortright

by Elaine CurrieCopyright 2006 Elaine Currie

If you are a visitor to England at Easter, you would be forgiven for thinking that the English people have nothing much in the way of Easter traditions apart from exchanging chocolate eggs. This is because the nature of Easter celebrations is low-key and private; Easter is a time for sober worship and quiet family gatherings without the razzmatazz and hectic atmosphere that accompanies Christmas. Even the exchange of Easter greetings cards tends to be confined to close friends and family.

After the brief bright interlude of Christmas, we sink back into our torpor and endure the dull cold winter months until our first spring bank holiday arrives and gives us a reason to come wide awake. In England we greet Easter with all the relief of dusty travellers arriving at an oasis in a desert. Our desert might be grey and damp instead of sun-baked but we find the green oasis with its promise of spring and rebirth equally as welcome.

Easter is the most important event in the Christian calendar but in the multicultural society of England it is appreciated by both Christians and non-Christians for the two day Bank holiday it brings. Unlike the two days our government allows us in which to celebrate Christmas, the Easter holidays never bring us a disappointing mid-week break, they always provide us with a four day weekend. A cause for celebration indeed!

Easter arrives quietly, no fanfare, no three month long advertising campaign like the one preceding Christmas. We aren’t urged to eat too much, drink to much, party too much, or do anything at all too much. We are permitted to relax and enjoy family life. There is no pressure to overspend on gifts for everyone from our nearest and dearest to the neighbour’s dog. Compared to the excesses promoted in the name of Christmas, the consumption of chocolate eggs seems a small indulgence.

In England, Easter is the official start of the gardeners’ year and also the time when all DIY enthusiasts, as if driven by some primeval urge, embark upon ambitious projects. If you are not interested in gardening or DIY, you have four whole days free to enjoy as you wish.

Easter is really too early for gardeners to be chancing the lives of tender plants but it is hard to resist the lure of the first real sunny days after the long grey winter. Amateur gardeners take bedding plants from the hothouses and thrust them into soil that’s far too cold to encourage growth. The experienced gardeners won’t gamble on frost free conditions and content themselves with planting the less decorative but frost-proof seed potatoes and onions. Gardening at Easter is an anxious time because the English weather is reliably unpredictable and even the most dedicated gardener is likely to encounter showers heavy enough to dampen his enthusiasm and drive him indoors for a chocolate egg break.

All the DIY jobs that have been in the planning stage since Christmas are lined up for the Easter break. For the week preceding the holiday, the DIY supply stores will be heaving with customers and taking more money than during any other week of the year. Then it will all go eerily quiet while all the customers adopt a kind of siege mentality and remain at home while they try to cram too much work into the long-anticipated four day weekend.

At Easter Morris dancers, who are not in the least fashionable except in spring, suddenly find themselves in demand. These troupes of dancers are almost exclusively male, rarely seen outside of small villages and are normally associated with a particular public house. Many pubs in England will have a darts team or a quiz team but there are only a few that can boast their own troupe of Morris dancers. As with playing darts, the availability of beer is an important part of this hobby. The amazing thing about Morris dancers is not that there are so few of them, it is that they have survived at all: grown men dressed in silly costumes, skipping around waving handkerchiefs and pigs’ bladders to the accompaniment of ancient folk tunes have limited appeal to most of modern society as a source of entertainment. However, they have survived and have spread to places as distant as Canada and New Zealand.

If you want to fully enjoy all the old English Easter traditions, the best place to be is in a quiet village far from any of the big cities. The village church will be beautifully decorated with fresh flowers. The village Easter Bunny will hide Easter eggs for the local children to find during the traditional Easter egg hunt. The Morris dancers will leap and prance at the slightest encouragement. The village bakery will offer fragrant hot cross buns warm from the oven and Simnel cakes with home made marzipan. Easter Sunday dinner will be roast lamb with mint sauce and all the traditional trimmings. Chocolate will be guilt-free for a whole weekend.

Apart from the weather, which will almost certainly include showers, the experience of Easter in a quiet English village couldn’t be more idyllic. It is only in a friendly village at this time of year that you can witness anything approaching a return to a more innocent time. There are not many places I can think of where an adult can dress up in a rabbit costume and hand out chocolate to children without having to worry about getting arrested, and men dressed all in white can skip and wave handkerchiefs at each other without attracting the wrong sort of attention. The English village is definitely the place to be for Easter. It is also the best place to enjoy May Day celebrations, but that’s another story.

About the Author

Elaine Currie has a Work At Home Directory http://www.huntingvenus.com Full of Ideas, Programme Reviews, Articles, Tips and Free Resources for everyone who wants to work at home.

by Nicole Dean
I was talking with some girlfriends and the topic of Easter came up. I asked, “What do you put in your Husband’s Easter Basket?”

The response I got was surprising to me. It’s funny how our own traditions make us assume others are like we are. It seemed I was in the minority when it came to Easter baskets for the adults.

Now, obviously there is no right or wrong in Easter Bunny Land, however, I will share with you some ideas in case you’d like to surprise your Husband this year with a basket of treats.

Here are some of the Easter Bunny’s favorite things to treat husbands with.

1. Football or baseball cards. This is one of my Husband’s interests, but mostly because he likes to share them with our son. However, I think he enjoys it just as much as our son does. He enjoys getting any kinds of sports trading cards and files them away to look at later. He hopes to pass them down to our son when he gets a family of his own.

2. A gift certificate to his favorite restaurant (not your favorite restaurant). If he loves going to the noisy, greasy place with the football games on TV, then get him a date to go there. That’s a better choice than the sushi place that that he can’t stand.

3. It’s the season for baseball! Get him some tickets to see a professional game, or season tickets to college baseball games. Just think of his favorite team, and go from there.

4. Summer fun ideas. Are his rollerblades beat up? Has his basketball seen better days? Does he need a new running pack to keep his keys and wallet in? The Easter Bunny could get him a gift certificate to his favorite sports store.

5. Time to break out the grill. If your husband loves to grill as much as mine does, then the Easter Bunny could bring him grill tools, meat seasonings, a new basket or even a cool manly apron.

On Easter morning, after the kids have found their baskets. (The Easter Bunny hides ours, does he hide yours?), look at Hubby and say “You didn’t look for yours yet.” Watch the kids’ excitement as they run around with your Husband to find his goodies. And watch the surprise on his face when he sees what you’ve done for him. He’ll love you for it.
About the AuthorNicole Dean is a writer for http://www.RomanceYourHusband.com – a website dedicated to helping married couples stay friends and to help them remember why they married each other in the first place. Our motto is: If he’s sweet, rub his feet.

by Sam Serio
Easter — a time of rebirth, regeneration, renewal — is also a time for celebration, and many people find that wearing Easter jewelry is an apt thing to do during the season. You can choose from among a wide selection of designs, from the solemn to the elegant to the carefree. Whatever your personality may be, you can be sure that there’s an accessory that’s just right for the festivities on Easter Sunday.

Easter conjures up images of rabbits and Easter eggs, as well as traditions associated with Easter. Most notable of these traditions is the Easter Monday Egg Roll held annually at the White House, which is supervised by the First Lady. Celebrities and politicians also turn out to watch the children roll Easter eggs on the south lawn of the White House. Of course, you don’t have to have celebrity status or be a person of prestige to look good during Easter or any other holiday. With Easter jewelry, a person could look his or her best and not break the bank by doing so.

Earrings, necklaces, rings, bracelets or brooches with Easter-themed or religiously inspired designs are common sights during the season. Necklaces with cross pendants or images of saints would be appropriate for Easter worship or mass. Bracelets and earrings that have dangling crosses are also seen on women, as are brooches and pins with similar designs. Men are also seen wearing accessories with religious motifs: cross cuff links and iconic medallions and bracelets.

When it comes to Easter festivities, you can look fun-filled and carefree depending on your attire and choice of accessories. Stretch bracelets with rabbit or egg charms are attractive and eye-catching, and many of them are inexpensive to boot! Similarly, you can get more into the spirit of the season by giving Easter jewelry to friends and family: charm bracelets are great gifts for kids, while adult recipients would perhaps appreciate brooches or pendants. Teenagers and other young people, on the other hand, would probably enjoy Easter-themed belly button rings or toe rings.

You don’t need to spend a large amount of money to give Easter jewelry gifts. Many of them are available in specialty stores and costume jewelry stores for just a few dollars, but even with the low price, you can be assured of attractive and whimsical designs and satisfactory workmanship. Of course, if you have a bit of extra money to spend on Easter jewelry, you can always avail of them from fine jewelers. And what’s great is that some fine jewelers have a philanthropic streak in them — they donate part of the price you pay for an item to a charitable cause.

One classic and classy piece of Easter jewelry that you can buy for yourself or for others is a Faberge-style Easter egg accessory. Carl Faberge was a famous jeweler in Russia, and the jeweled eggs he created, made with precious gems and metals, were much in demand among the Russian royalty and elite. Today, there are contemporary Easter egg jewelry pieces that follow the Faberge pattern and style.

Whether you are attending mass on Easter Sunday, or participating in an Easter parade, or watching kids have fun at the White House Easter Monday Egg Roll — or all of the above! — wearing Easter jewelry is a great way to express and celebrate the meaning of Easter.
About the Author

Sam Serio is an Internet Marketer, musician, and writer on the subject of jewelry and gemstones. For more information on jewelry, we cordially invite you to visit http://www.morninglightjewelry.com to pick up your FREE copy of “How To Buy Jewelry And Gemstones Without Being Ripped Off.” This concise, informative special report reveals almost everything you ever wanted to know about jewelry and gemstones, but were afraid to ask.

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