50 Days of Easter.

Easter is actually a season which lasts for 50 days. In his book' Living Easter through the Year' John Pritchard says

'We travel long and hard through Lent and Holy Week. The build up of spiritual pressure is immense. .......... And then comes Easter day- the most astonishing day in the history of the world. The Lord of history erupts into his own creation, shattering our closed minds and throwing open the windows of eternity. Christ is risen! There's ecstasy for a moment, sheer,wild, abandoned ecstasy.
And then we have a bank holiday.'

I  too feel the disappointment that Easter is over so quickly, unrecognised except for the queues of Bank Holiday traffic. Last year we decided to celebrate for the whole season - I planned a variety of activities, three or four for each week until Pentecost and wrote them out on slips of paper which I hid in a plastic eggs  suspended on a wreath I had hung on our veranda. The eggs were numbered and we opened one every Sunday and did the activities suggested throughout the following week. I kept it simple , sometimes a memory verse to learn, an Easter movie or book suggestion, an outing, a picnic breakfast to watch the sunrise.

It was fun and I want to do it again this year and invite you , my readers, to join me.  Please share your ideas for activities, resources, crafts, food, books, films, outings - anythings that helps to  keep the joy and thrill of Easter at the centre of our focus over the next weeks. Here are a few of the things that our family did last year - to give you the idea of what I mean.

Baked Greek Easter bread
Watched the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Miracle Maker.
Made a table water fountain and learnt Revelations7:17
Sunrise breakfast picnic
Went shopping for new clothes
Told jokes at the dinner table - there is, apparently, an old  tradition that the preacher would tell jokes in his evening sermon on Easter day and have the congregation roaring with laughter

Please post your comments and suggestions here and lets live Easter for the next 50 days!