Easter Baskets!

Correction, "Ishtar", is a fertility goddess worshiped by the pagans and has no place in Christian worship, (that is if you are a Christian).

Cody, many Christians celebrate Easter as the resurrection of Christ. Pesach, or Passover, comes about the same time according to the Hebrew calendar. Christ is our Passover Lamb without Whom we could never have been led out of Egypt (a symbol for our state of slavery to sin). You could say that the church "took over" a pagan "holiday," but don't you think the devil had it long enough? It is time for Christians to claim it for Christ! He is risen and I for one, will celebrate Easter with all my heart.

I agree with you to a point peavey. The holiday is celebrated with the intent to bring joy and happiness to children through means not Christian. The nations corrupted everything after the flood. There was universal knowledge about the "coming one", but over time many cultures just did their own things. This Pesach is what it is, the passover, not bunnies and eggs. Yes, I understand that they are symbols, but one has to remember that a symbol represents what a person thinks, feels, or believes. Why was the passover instituted? It was to show the Jews the truth behind the resurrection. That the passover will be instituted until the savior comes and that he is the final sacrifice. Plus, the passover celebration is no longer needed because he has risen. He has broken every barrier and has cleansed all things. We dont need any more anything seeing that we already know he has come and now reigns in the heavenlies. We need to live our lives according to James 1:27. This is the whole duty of man... Ishtar is the name of the goddess of fertility as you already know. We should never associate our beliefs with those of pagan cultures. "Come out of her my people and partake NOT in her destruction..." Why not just go ahead and celebrate easter? Because it is not christian based, and never was until Constantine. Just because he proclaimed to be a christian, it does not make it ok to celebrate these things. Just because George W. Bush prays, it does not make him a christian. These things can be said too about Halloween. They are pagan and have no place in our culture. I will never tell my children about "santa clause" because he never existed, and it is a lie. I will not lie to my children. The "real" st. nick was a toy maker from Germany who helped out little boys and girls. That is what I would tell my children when christmas time came around and they wanted to know what was going on. This thing about flying reindeer and all that other junk is silly. Valentines day, and all the rest are just like it. I will tell you that a lady got mad at me for telling her in a public forum that Halloween is pagan and christians should not celebrate it...She got all bent out of shape telling me to "let the kids have their fun..." and, "dont spoil their night". Really? I told her that if she really cared about her children's spiritual and mental life, then start teaching them the 10 commandments and study HARD the entire Bible. As you can see, I am very passionate about these things. He has risen and we no longer need symbols.

This year I really did go light on the candy and heavier on the toys and things. However, I really do think that my children really did appreciate those things.

It's kind of funny that when kids don't get as much, they tend to appreciate what they do get, much more.

That is definitely true. I think that there are far too many times when parents really over buy for their children.

That's actually the one item all 3 kids can agree on.

You know, I really don't do chocolate bunnies because they are something that would traditionally go to waste in our house.

Luckily, it was actually nice this year on Easter Day so my children were able to enjoy an egg hunt outside in my Mom's back yard. They were just empty eggs and at the conclusion, my mother gave each of the kids five dollars.

My daughter is getting to that point, but my son is still small so I just go ahead and do it for both of them.

That sounds really nice. I too had stuffed bunnies for each of my children this year.

I love to give my boy things like that. Even at 14, hes not to old for it. Take care there.

You are right that Easter is the second Christmas. With the baskets that my children got this year, it really was a miniature version of the types of presents that they would get on Christmas.

For us, our two big holidays of the year are Easter and Christmas. When it comes to Mother's Day, we really don't do a lot because my father-in-law insists that we spend the day with them (Tom's mom). Thus I can't do anything for my mother and my children can't do anything for me.

My children aren't really all that picky. The thing with the Furby was the fact that I'd told them that I would make sure and tell the Easter Bunny to get them a Furby since Santa Claus didn't bring them one at Christmas.

With my children being older, it is impossible for me to do Easter with no candy, but this year they had a lot less candy than they would have gotten in the past.

If it wasn't for my children I wouldn't make Easter baskets either. However, since I do have the kids, I have to say that Easter baskets really are something that I look forward to each year.

My goal this year was to not be shopping on the night before Easter, but that was definitely not something that worked out for me the way that I'd planned it to work out.