This blog shares some Easter celebration resources for making Holy Week meaningful for your family. Keep reading for my study guide and free printable downloads. It’s nothing fancy, but I first started doing this in 2018 and this little tradition has come to be really special to my kids. Now, they ask when I’ll put up the cards and pictures as Easter comes close!

– Lydia, post updated in 2023.

If you’ve been reading along here, you know I’ve stepped away from most social media use over Lent, and it’s been wonderful to reclaim so much of my time for meaningful things (OK let’s be real, a bunch of my time is spent on super un-exciting, mundane stuff as well. Just to be clear…) But it’s true that you get into such a habit of filling every little crevasse of boredom with distraction and suddenly, you lose a lot. You lose the quiet. There’s been a lot of quiet lately, and yes, boredom too, but that’s a good thing. It was much-needed.

One big project I’ve been working on for some time is preparing our Easter celebration. I’ve always really loved Easter; the longer days returning, the early spring flowers, the sunshine filtering in the windows on beautiful Easter Sundays… If you know me at all you know I’m a Christmas nut, ha! But Easter has really come to hold almost as much of a special place for me. And it’s important to me that it doesn’t just sneak up on us and turn into a bunny fest. Easter is such an important and meaningful holiday for us as Christians, it’s a wonderful way to help our children learn of Christ.

This year, our oldest is three and a half and can begin to grasp some of these concepts, so I’m excited to really dive in and get started. What I’ve come up with is a Holy Week plan of celebrations — with visual displays, activities, meals and treats to cook together, videos to watch, music to listen to, books to read, a scripture study schedule, etc. Yes, it’s a bit ambitious and we won’t use all of it — especially with young children! But I wanted to put together a plan of action and also a lot of different options and possibilities that we can pull from as we adapt to the day, the age of our children, our availability, etc. I’ve come across a wealth of information and resources out there, and I’ve compiled a lot of it and taken what I think will work for us.

And I wanted to share these plans I’ve crafted with you, too!

LDS Holy Week Study Guide and Free Printable Cards

Don’t feel overwhelmed: take what you want or need, leave the rest — and quite certainly those plans will change with your family over time.

Here is my study guide, list of activities, resources, daily plans, etc. Feel free to use it for yourself and your family, do note it is heavily inspired from resources pulled around the web (glorious internet, and thank you Pinterest!) so it is more a compilation than it is my own personal creation. (It’s most heavily inspired by two bloggers who are sisters and who put out some amazing resources and ideas for mothers and families) A few ideas are mine, most are borrowed from amazing people who have done the work before.

And here is a printable I’ve put together if you’d like to display the timeline of Easter Week as well (or use the cards for lessons with your family, etc.) Each day has a description of the events of the day, scripture references to read along, and a quote about a particular theme of the day. I also cut out images of Christ from church magazines and am displaying them alongside the timeline cards, which I had laminated before putting up.

(Just finished putting them up tonight after the kids were in bed)

I am excited to make this a truly special week! I’m also not getting my expectations up too high, I’ve learned my lesson with little children… ha ha! (as I’m putting finishing touches on this post, my children are both crying because they want my attention in very different ways, right this minute… sigh. It’s been a day…)

OK I’m back.

Easter Home Tour

Finally, a little fun: we put up the Easter/Spring decorations a little bit ago. It’s always something I enjoy (and Adelina likes it too — she “decorates” her room all the time now, it’s so cute!) to pull out a new season’s box and bring out the joy! I’m still on the hunt for a simple, white ceramic Easter bunny by the way, if you have any pointers… it takes time to collect things that have meaning or that you love for each season, and over the years I’ve collected little things here and there. I love those pastel tin pails because I bought them to set out treats for my roommates one Easter in college.

Not everything has meaning, of course, some things are just pretty or fun or fell into my lap in one way or another… but little by little things come together.

Some spring flowers holding strong after a Relief Society activity from about two weeks ago! That table runner is a little one I made in our first year of marriage, back when we had a miniature table. It’s basically the size of a place mat, ha! It works nicely for this little corner spot now — and my style may have changed some since then, but it’s nice to have something to add some color so it stays for now 🙂

This is a print I love for its simplicity — and because of that, it is powerful. “He is not here,” by Walter Rane.

Adelina and I did some painting the other day and I decided to copy this gorgeous print. It’s imperfect but I love it, and I especially love that I got to spend time with my daughter doing something she wanted to do and made something lovely for our home — for free!

Then things worked out perfectly when I spotted these sweet little sprig wreaths at JoAnn’s down in Utah last week — they match it so well!

So there you have it — I’ve also been collecting little things for the Easter baskets (little board books, a church activity/sticker book for Adelina, new Sunday clothes — sheesh these kids need to stop growing, would you believe our 3 year-old is already getting too snug in her 4T clothes?! — and of course yummy chocolates and treats! Oh and some little cars for Jonas because he’s really into that these days and it’s adorable. (which reminds me I forgot to get those yesterday, dang it!)

On Observing Lent with a Social Media Fast

Taking all this time off social media has been a huge blessing in many ways, even though it was hard at first (which sounds so pathetic, I know: who wants to admit how much they miss Instagram?!) because I’ve had time to really think about what I want to make of this time, and it’s given me the mental energy to really plan and prep for a beautiful Easter celebration.

I’ve talked about fasting from social media for Lent in the past, here and here notably. I’ve even given a talk at a women’s conference about it!

Now that it’s 2023, the battle for our brains and reclaiming our time from the digital world is not exactly a new topic — but if you are still looking for resources, I’ve shared some of my favorite takeaways on digital minimalism here. Up next on my reading list is Catherine Price’s “How to Break Up with Your Phone.” Because yes, 5+ years later after writing all of this, it is still something I find difficult.

So here we go! I would love to hear about your favorite Easter traditions, please do tell! And if you end up using my study/activity guide or printable cards I’d love to see/hear about it. Do consider sharing this if you found it at all helpful!