Easter in Quarantine

Easter 2020 was definitely a unique holiday. Because of the joy of Jesus' resurrection, Easter has always been one of my favorite holidays to celebrate. It was definitely strange to think about celebrating on a much smaller scale this year-- in the confines of our own home, rather than with a joyful body of believers. Nevertheless, even though our celebrations were done differently, the power of Easter still remained-- Jesus was and still is our Risen Savior. No quarantine or virus could ever change that! Here is a peek into how our family celebrated at home.

Palm Sunday

On the Sunday before Easter, our church typically hands out real palms for people to wave as we sing and talk about Jesus' procession into Jerusalem. Our kids have always enjoyed waving these palms. This year, our Children's Ministry director sent us digital downloads so we could create our own palm branches. Our kiddos each made several prior to the service.

We waved the branches in front of our TV during our livestreamed Palm Sunday service. Definitely a unique, yet meaningful, version of Palm Sunday! 

"You've Been Egged" Hunt

This was our children's first of three egg hunts this Easter. Guess if we couldn't have our typical large church-wide egg hunt, might as well have as many hunts as possible at home. Ha! This first egg hunt happened as a surprise to us. A family from our church connect group hid several dozen eggs around our front yard and then texted us when they were done. The kids loved finding the eggs and particularly loved the candy inside!

Easter Egg Dyeing

I almost completely forgot about dyeing eggs this year! Thankfully, we had extra dye kits leftover from last year, so we just had to send Jason out to buy a bunch of eggs the day before Easter. We didn't do anything fancy, but the kids were nevertheless proud of their colored eggs.

Resurrection Rolls

This activity will definitely become a tradition in our family. I had heard about these rolls before but figured that this year would finally be the perfect time to try them out since we were at home all day on Easter! We started with Pillsbury crescent rolls...

dipped a marshmallow in butter,  

and covered it with cinnamon and sugar.

Then, we rolled the marshmallow inside the Pillsbury dough,

and (literally) watched them bake.

All three kids thought the rolls were simply delicious. I mean, who wouldn't love sugared-up crescent rolls?!

We were all very impressed with the hole left inside the roll once the marshmallow melted. The entire recipe makes a wonderful object lesson for Jesus' preparation for burial (spices, embalming) and His resurrection from the tomb. Pretty cool.

Easter Sunday

My parents had planned ahead and given us money to pick out Easter outfits for the kids well before Easter. So, since all my kids had beautiful new outfits to wear anyway, and since I wanted the Sunday to feel extra special, we all dressed up in our Easter finest for online church.

Jason had absolutely no commitments at church that Sunday, so he was at home with us all morning too. What an unsual Easter for us all! We loved being able to worship all together...

...even if it was just on our living room couch!

Easter Dinner

My parents are the greatest! They decided that even though our families couldn't gather together for a large Easter meal, they still wanted to gift us all with an Easter feast. So, Mom and Dad drove to each of our Texas families' homes and dropped off a delicious meal of ham, fresh beans, potatoes, rolls, and dessert. Then, we all gathered around our individual tables and connected with each other via Zoom. What a funny way to eat a meal!! The food was soooo yummy and the kids were actually surprisingly calm, talking with each other from a distance. Definitely a very memorable Easter meal! Thanks, Mom and Dad, for making this so special!

More Easter Egg Hunts

On Easter afternoon, Daddy hid more eggs for the kids outside. These were eggs that we had kept aside for our kids as a way to thank them for all the many, many hundreds of eggs that they had stuffed for our church.

Finally, in the evening, our neighbors invited us to join in a two-part egg hunt-- one normal and one with glow in the dark eggs! We didn't really follow the rules of social distancing as the kids hunted, but since they'd all been playing together outside anyway over the past month, we figured it would be okay. The kids were hilarious to watch as they lined up to gather eggs! Adley and another young neighbor hunted for eggs in a smaller yard (so they wouldn't get run over by all these big kids!).

We waited until dark for Round 2 of the egg hunt. The eggs were filled with small glow sticks which the kids could connect to make larger necklaces. They all seemed to enjoy the process of finding glowing eggs!! What a creative idea!

So, while our events of Easter 2020 looked very different, we are thankful that we have a Savior who doesn't change. Quarantine or not-- He is Risen. He is Risen indeed!