How the Duggars Celebrate Easter

FAMILY MATTERS on 03.29.13

Michelle Duggar19 Kids and CountingBIO

 

Image: DCL

Question from a "19 Kids and Counting" fan: Do the Duggars have special family traditions for Easter?

Instead of doing the typical egg hunt and candy, we’ve made our own way of celebrating Easter. We call it Resurrection Sunday because we really want the children to know why we’re celebrating Easter. We like to explain to the children that this is a celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Jim Bob and I really wanted the kids to understand the true meaning of Easter, that it isn’t about all the candy and eggs.

The day before Easter, we get ready by doing crafts and baking cookies. One of our favorite projects involves writing the gospel message from scripture on paper that the kids can decorate. We laminate them with contact paper so they last for years. Every year, we pull out the old ones and you can really see the transition from year to year as the kids get older and their art changes.

We also love to make cookies and decorate them; they’ll be in the shape of a cross or a heart to symbolize Easter. The older ones help their little siblings with the cookies and crafts and share their Easter memories. I love to listen to them talk about how they used to ice their cookies or do their crafts when they were little. It’s such a sweet way to make memories.

We don’t do candy or Easter baskets for the kids, instead we make individual bags filled with their favorite treats. Not candy, but other goodies that the kids don’t get much any other time of the year. Snacks like beef jerky, canned potato chips and pickles, of course! The Duggars all love pickles. Most of the time in our house, we’ll buy the large containers of cheaper pickles. But at Easter, we splurge on little jars of the more expensive, refrigerated pickles. Each child will get their own jar with their name on it. I put it all together in a pretty treat bag for each of them and decorate them with a cross on the outside.

Then, on Easter Sunday, we go to church and have fellowship dinner, and it’s just such a special time. For us, it’s all about Resurrection Sunday and what that means, and about those sweet memories that you choose to make for your family and your kids.