Celebrating Holy Week

Over the last few years, I have tried to find ways to emphasize Resurrection Day (Easter) in our home.  Christmas is filled with decorations and reminders of the season, but Easter seems to get the shaft--at least religiously.  When we first got our house, I went out to find something to hang on our door that would point to the real meaning of Easter.  Took me a while, but I finally found a cross with a butterfly on it, a symbol to me of Jesus' death and our new life (the butterfly).  I also have a neat little word block that spells out Easter and each letter has a verse that goes with it.  A few years ago I happened upon a figurine for sale at Wal-Mart--Jesus and Mary Magdalene at an empty tomb.  I put that on our mantel (after all, we have nativities at Christmas--why not have the empty tomb at Easter?).  With all these things pointing to the truth, I still thought we lacked something.  That's when I stumbled upon a seller on Etsy who makes Holy Week ornaments.  It's like advent in that you have a devotional for every day from Palm Sunday to Easter.  One ornament goes with each devotional.  Finally I had found something that could tell the story of Easter in a sequential and meaningful way for our daughter.  (I made my own Resurrection Eggs when I taught preschool.  That's fine, but I like the idea of the ornaments because they stay up the whole week long, a visual reminder all week).  It just so happened that I had organized our craft supplies the day before and found an unused ornament tree (thanks, God!).

Below are the ornaments up to the day before Easter:

On Easter, you flip the cross and it looks like this:

 

If you're looking for a way to make Resurrection Day more meaningful, I highly recommend these. I'm very pleased someone out there has put time and effort to emphasize Easter Week just as much as Christmas.

Holy Week Ornaments