
Family traditions connect us to past and future generations. They provide meaning and connection, as well as a sense of ritual and comfort. And they can create - and help to preserve - some of life's most moving moments.
Easter traditions can help to usher in a season of love, rejuvenation, and abundance. Here are seven ideas for sharing the sweetness of this special season:
- Start a kindness wreath for your doorway. For the week of Easter, give each family member 10 or more ribbons in bright spring colors. Each time a family member reaches out to someone in kindness during the week, they simply tie another ribbon onto the wreath.
- Ask your children to make a special drawing or a collage that depicts what Easter means for them. After you display them during the Easter season, scan them or take a photo and record the artwork in a special journal or album for a treasured Easter keepsake.
- Create a Garden Journal. Cover a composition book with spring patterned papers or photos/clippings of your favorite flowers. Document the process of creating your family garden this year. Make sure to include photos of your family members digging in the dirt. Record their favorite flowers and their favorite part of working in the garden...and, of course, lots of journaling and flower pressings.
- Fill an Easter basket with cheerful messages, handmade cards, or simple gifts. Then leave the basket anonymously on a friend's doorstep.
- If you have young children, video- or audio-tape them singing a fun seasonal song. Tapes of "Here comes peter cottontail" and "Little Bunny Foo Foo" can make treasured mementos. Share the tapes with distant family and friends.
- When it's time for your Easter brunch or Easter dinner, give each guest a 6x6 sheet of cardstock and ask them to handwrite a couple of special messages for the holiday...perhaps ways they are feeling renewed or grateful in their lives. Snap a photo of each guest and create a quick and simple 6x6 mini-album as a keepsake featuring one page for each guest (with their photo and contribution.)
- Make some handmade Easter greeting cards to send to family and friends. Or renew friendships by hostessing a card-making party where each guest makes 5 to 10 friendship cards. Make a point to send out five cards this spring to people with whom you would like to rejuvenate a relationship.
This holiday, may you embrace and celebrate the beauty that comes into our lives through our family and friends. (And enjoy lots of chocolate!)
Susie Cortright is the founder of momscape.com - http://www.momscape.com and Momscape's Scrapbooking Playground - http://www.momscape.com/scrapbooking - devoted to helping visitors record and preserve their cherished memories.
Susie also trains and supports new scrapbooking instructors with a new and rapidly- growing direct sales scrapbooking company. Find out how to join her team here: http://www.momscape.com/scrapbooking/consulta nt
AP - The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire between Hamas militants and Israeli forces now fighting in the Gaza Strip. Thursday night's vote was 14-0 with the United States abstaining.
AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal," he said. In an interview with The Associated Press, Cheney also said that Bush has no need to apologize for not foreseeing the economic crisis.
AP - A key panel unanimously recommended impeachment for Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday, setting up a vote that could make him the first governor to face such fate in Illinois' sordid political history. Blagojevich should lose his job for abusing power, mismanaging government and committing possible criminal acts, including federal allegations he tried to sell off a U.S. Senate seat, the special committee concluded.
AP - President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.
AP - The many Bernard Madoff investors who withdrew money from their accounts over the years are now wrestling with an ethical and legal quandary. What they thought were profits was likely money stolen from other clients in what prosecutors are calling the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Now, they are confronting the possibility they may have to pay some of it back.
AP - In grainy cell-phone videos played over and over on the Internet, police officers force an unarmed black man to the ground and hold him face-down on a crowded train platform. Suddenly one of the officers draws his gun and fatally shoots the man in the back then looks up.
AP - U.S. policy to win in Afghanistan must recognize the poor nation's limitations and its neighborhood, especially its intertwined relationship with U.S. terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan, the top U.S. military commander in the region said Thursday.
AP - Two Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks couldn't produce a point in the first quarter of the BCS championship game. Tim Tebow and No. 1 Florida and Sam Bradford and No. 2 Oklahoma were scoreless after the first 15 minutes at Dolphin Stadium on Thursday night.
Reuters - Recovery teams ventured into battlegrounds of the Gaza Strip on Thursday to gather bodies from the rubble, and Hamas officials said the Palestinian death toll in Israel's 13-day-old offensive had risen to 765.
Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama warned on Thursday the U.S. economy could stay mired in recession for years without bold action and he urged lawmakers to work day and night to pass a massive stimulus plan.
Reuters - Financial giant Citigroup Inc will support a proposal in Congress to rewrite U.S. bankruptcy law to help troubled mortgage borrowers avoid foreclosure, Chief Executive Vikram Pandit said on Thursday.
Reuters - A legislative committee on Thursday recommended the impeachment of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, citing widespread abuse of power including allegations he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
Reuters - The United States and its allies share some interests with Iran when it comes to stabilizing Afghanistan, Army Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. military's Central Command, said on Thursday.
Reuters - Accused swindler Bernard Madoff had signed checks totaling more than $173 million in his office desk ready to be sent out before his arrest, U.S. prosecutors said in court papers on Thursday asking a judge to jail him.
Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama named Tim Kaine as head of the Democratic Party on Thursday, rewarding an early supporter with a high-profile political post even as he continues to serve as Virginia governor.
Reuters - Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other top U.S. retailers delivered disappointing December same-store sales and profit warnings on Thursday, sparking fresh recession concerns that hit stock and currency markets.
AFP - Diplomatic efforts to end the Gaza conflict intensified Friday with Western and Arab diplomats agreeing to call for an immediate ceasefire as the death toll from the two-week-old war rose past 760.
AFP - Hopes for a quick resumption of Russian gas supplies to Europe were rising Friday after Russia agreed on the terms for the deployment of monitors in Ukraine.
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