It’s NOT About the Bunny, Honey

Easter Sunday is only days away — it seems like yesterday when we started preparing for Lent. Has it really been almost 40 days since? Gosh, how time flies.

This year, we’re going to try to encourage our kids to get more involved in the Easter Triduum, i.e. the activities in Church starting Holy Thursday up to the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. In previous years, we’d usually skip the Easter Vigil as the children were still quite little then. Although we haven’t decided yet if we’ll do the Vigil this year, we’re not crossing it off our “Easter celebration-to-do list” for now.

What is very definite though, is this: as in years past, we’re going to emphasize again to our kids that Easter is not about the Easter Bunny, or getting Easter eggs, or springtime (which is not really that relevant to us Filipinos anyway).

What we are going to do is remind them that Easter is about the glorious Resurrection of Jesus, just as Christmas is about the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. Rather than focus on the joy of receiving Easter eggs from the Easter Bunny, we will celebrate the joy of spending eternity in Heaven in the future — which is why Jesus died and rose again in the first place.

Photo source here.

Don’t get me wrong, though. We’re not going to be complete killjoys and “deprive” our children of chocolate Easter eggs and other treats. We actually are planning to go on an “Easter treat hunt” in our teeny-tiny apartment on Easter Sunday (or, on second thought, maybe we’ll have it in my parents’ place, tee hee!).

Aside from Easter eggs and other treats, we’ll hide faith-themed little things, like small Christian books from our favorite Booksale branch, stickers of Jesus, Mary and other saints (if these are available), and other cute, novelty items around for the kids to “hunt.” If our budget permits, we may even get them Easter presents, similar to the Christmas parents most kids usually receive.

Photo source here.

Prior to our planned Easter Sunday mini-festivities, we’re planning to attend the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday (today!) and, hopefully, do our own simple washing of the feet ceremony as a family.  We also plan to do the Visita Iglesia Online, a service provided by the CBCP.

On Good Friday, we hope to be able to do the Stations of the Cross and join the Good Friday service and Veneration of the Cross in our parish. I’ll also ask the kids to do one or two cross crafts (taking ideas either from Catholic Icing.com, American Catholic mommy blogger Lacy's fab blog, or The Learning Basket.com, a blog set up by fellow Catholic Filipino homeschool mom, Mariel).

On Holy Saturday, we’ll try to keep our activities as solemn as possible and prepare for the Easter Sunday celebration we have planned.

It’s my deepest hope and prayer that by doing this, our children will not only learn that Easter isn’t about the bunny, but, more importantly, treasure and enjoy living out our faith. I think it’s wonderful that the Church gives us 50 days to celebrate Easter, not just one Sunday! Here’s to more fun, faith-filled activities in our home!

And here’s to a blessed, happy Easter to you all, dear readers! Enjoy your much-deserved break with your loved ones!

On Smart Parenting.com.ph: How to Teach Your Kids about Holy Week and Easter

I'm so blessed and honored that I am able to spread God's message of love through what I do as a writer. I started out contributing to Smart Parenting, a local parenting website here in the Philippines, because I primarily wanted to earn extra money to augment our missionary family's monthly income. Little did I know, God had and still has another plan for me as one of the more regular contributing writers to the site. (I used to contribute under two names, i.e. Teachermama Tina and Tina Santiago-Rodriguez. Starting this year though, my editor asked me to choose just one, so I stuck to Tina Santiago-Rodriguez).

Image from the Smart Parenting website

One of the biggest blessings of writing for Smart Parenting is being able to write about things close to my heart, like my faith, homeschooling, breastfeeding, intentional parenting and other subjects. One of my latest articles on Smart Parenting really blessed me in a special way, because I was able to "kill two birds with one stone," as they say — because of the research I had to do for the article (about how to teach your kids about Holy Week), I was able to come up with ideas for our own family's Holy Week and Easter celebrations.

Image source here.

I'm sharing the link to that article here, i.e. "Ways to Teach Your Kids about Holy Week," in the hope that it will be of help to you and your family. :) May you have a blessed, beautiful Holy Week and Easter ahead! :)

P.S. Oh, and to those of you who are friends with me on Facebook, or part of my Facebook groups, or followers of my Facebook page and Twitter feeds, THANKS OH SO MUCH for praying for my sister and Baby Pia, the latest addition to our family — our "miracle baby," conceived after almost 11 years of waiting, through St. Pio of Petrelcina's intercession. :) (I wrote about that here.) We are truly blessed because of you all! :) God bless you and yours abundantly!

Those "Awww" Moments, The Search for A Progressive School and A Late Start to Our Lenten Journey

I've been a very bad Teacher Mama this past week.. To be perfectly honest, I feel like I've been one these past few months! We've been doing more of unschooling, or as others prefer to call it, relaxed homeschooling, life-learning, interest-led learning or child-led learning. and so on. (Although many, many days, I've been guilty of letting the kids watch TV/DVDs and play educational computer games waaayy too much! Please forgive me, Lord!)

Despite our erratic daily routine and "instant-without-Mama-having-prepared-well-in-advance-so-let's-just-wing-it-today" lessons, my changing-though-thank-God-there's-a-level-of-regularity work schedule, I'm still thankful to God for the "Awww" moments He blesses me with, like when I was hugging Tim this morning after he woke up, and asked him, "Will you still let me hug you when you're all grown up?"

Tim: "Yes!"

Me: "Even if you're already married?"

Tim: "Yes!"

Me: "How about if you become a priest?"

Tim: "I'm not going to be a priest!"

Me: "Why not?"

Tim: "I don't want to. But I'll still serve God."

Me: (silently: "Awwwww...")

Tim: "I'm going to be a ninja!"

Me: "How will you serve God when you're a ninja?"

Tim: "You know. I just will."

Hahaha! How do I answer that one?

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In other news, yes, you read the title of this post right.. because of my "fear" that I'm not teaching Tim "enough" and that he is "missing out," I am/we are currently scouting progressive preschools for next school year. Though I still have this nagging feeling that we're still being called to homeschool, the "segurista" (Umm.. what's the English word for that? Someone who always wants to be sure of things?! haha!) in me just wants to know her options.