Happy Easter from Sugar Mountain!

History of Easter Customs: Many of the current Easter customs can be traced to their beginnings in pagan celebrations of the Earth's rebirth in Spring. The English word "Easter" is from the name of a Teutonic goddess of spring or the dawn, as spring is the dawn of a new cycle of life on earth. The Easter egg is a symbol of new life, as all life begins with an egg. People dress in new clothes and wear flowers on Easter Sunday because the winter has come to an end, and the earth seems alive again. This is symbolic for the earth shedding its old winter clothes and donning new spring gear. Easter is now a mixture of these pagan customs and a Christian holiday.

Why the Date for Easter changes every year: Easter was celebrated at different times by the early Christian churches until 325 A.D. At that time, the Council of Nicaea fixed the day as the first Sunday after the first full moon after March 21. This places Easter always at sometime between March 22 and April 25.

Christian History: Easter is the Sunday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it is one of the most holy days in the calendar of Christian churches. The Easter message is one of hope and victory over death, as it is a remembrance that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. Easter symbolizes the love of God for man, that he would allow his only son to be sacrificed for us, and the promise that man's soul will never die. It symbolizes God's promise to us that, just as Jesus was resurrected, so shall man be resurrected through God.

Our Own Family's Easter Customs: I can remember when I was a little girl, I went to church every Sunday with my grandparents. I did not always have a new Easter dress or shoes or a hat, as many of the other girls did. That was okay, though, because my grandparents were always there. My grandmother did not buy a new Easter dress or shoes or hat, and that made it okay with me. She thought it was a terrible custom and only taught children that you had to have money to enjoy Easter. "That's not what it's all about, honey," she told me, "You just listen to the sermon, and you will know what it's all about." She told me that, when Christ died on the cross, the soldiers cast lots for his clothes. Jesus didn't go out and buy new clothes for his resurrection. God gave him his new clothes, she told me. My grandmother was one of the smartest and best Christian women I ever knew, and I agree with her philosophy.

As I grew up and had my own kids, our family established their own Easter customs. For many years, our kids have gotten Easter Baskets every year. Last year, even though we thought they had kind of outgrown the idea of Easter baskets, they insisted that none of them was "too old" to believe in the Easter Bunny.

We also have had an Easter Egg Hunt every year. We have, for many years past, bought the small plastic easter eggs, placing in them bits of candy, change, small toys, stickers, rings, secret decoders, all sorts of little bits of things. We have even placed dollar bills in a few of them to give the older kids an incentive to search for the eggs. One year, we placed probably 6 dozen plastic eggs over about an acre of ground. We invited every kid in the area to participate. Not all of the eggs were found, and we never did find some of them. I think that the adults had just as good a time hiding them as the kids did finding them. Every kid found at least a few.

By 1999, we didn't have many children in our area, and we were down to two teenagers at home. We didn't have an Easter egg hunt or Easter baskets for the first time in many years. By 2000, most of our grandkids were living in the area, along with most of our kids, so Easter of 2000 turned out to be the beginning of some all new traditions!  There is usually an Easter egg hunt every year, but we take turns "hosting" that with the kids.  Someone on the mountain usually hosts an Easter dinner every year too.  We even went camping one year during Easter weekend, and our kids went ahead and had the Easter egg hunt and the dinner without us.  So, I think it's fair to say, our family Easter traditions have been established. 

We don't go to church every Sunday. We don't even go to church very often, but we do have our own faith. We pray and worship God in our home and in his gloriously created world. In the sunshine, the evening breezes that whisper over the mountain, the fresh spring daffodils blooming in our yard, the morning mists that float over the mountains in shrouds and settle in the valley like a blanket, in the blooming of our forsythia bushes, the bright pinks and yellows popping up over the yard, in the brightly colored birds that line our feeders, in all these things, our faith is reinforced. We know God is alive and well around here.