Celebrating Easter at Home

This Easter of 2020 we find ourselves in a very peculiar predicament with no public Sacrifice of the Mass available to attend and restrictions of the reception of the sacraments. We are in surreal new world, a Narnia where it feels as if it will always be Lent, but never Easter.

But Easter has still come! Even though we can not be physically present at the Paschal Sacrifice of the Mass we can still assist with those Easter oblations throughout the world with our own sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving at home. We can still flip the switch for our family from the dreariness of this Lent to the Joyful Festival of Easter, and make beautiful, lifelong memories in the process. And our children will never forget the year they had Easter at home.

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Bigger than Christmas

Easter is the most important feast of the whole Church year! St. Athanasius called it "the Great Sunday" while the Catechism tells us:

Easter is not simply one feast among others, but the "Feast of feasts," the "Solemnity of solemnities," just as the Eucharist is the "Sacrament of sacraments."

Catechism of the Catholic Church 1169

Easter is also the higher ranked octave of the two octaves remaining on the Universal Roman Calendar of 1970. An octave is an extension of the celebration of a feast by 7 additional days, making the total length 8 days. For Christmas the extra days are made of second class feast days or just the rank of feast in the new calendar, while in the Octave of Easter every day is another solemnity.

In our home we are trying to get across Easter as the "Solemnity of Solemnities" to our children by intentionally making it a bigger deal than Christmas. Our general ways of doing this is by making Easter and it's season as wedding like as possible, keeping Christmas simpler, but also keeping the Easter festivities going throughout the whole of the 50 day season until Pentecost. More on that in post to come...

Flipping the Switch

To mark the change from the penance and sacrifice of Lent to the Joyous season of Easter or Paschaltide, there are a few things we do on Easter day to make stark contrast between the liturgical seasons.

1. Decorate in the Same Spirit as Christmas

The first thing we change in our home for Easter is how it looks. Similarly to Christmas Eve, but without all the cheerful music and sweet treats, on Holy Saturday we begin adding our few Easter decorations to the lenten ones. Like the first Holy Saturday, in our home each year it serves as a bridge from the darkness after Christ's death to the light of His resurrections.

We are slowly adding to our Easter trimmings with bright, flowery spring decorations. For our family we want the Easter season to feel as wedding like as possible because the glory of the Pascal Feast is only a foretaste of the heavenly banquet we hope to enjoy in eternity. The fresh flowers missing from the church altars and our home return with Easter. And instead of garlands of evergreen, swags of flowers and greenery adorn the mantle and piano.

2. Set the Tone with Music

Music is our first go to for creating an atmosphere in our home. During Lent one of our family crosses is to only listen to penitential sacred music. But for Easter it is all jubilant Easter hymns, festive classical music, and impromptu dance parties in the living room.

After the Blessed Sacrament, the music of Holy Week is what I miss the most when unable to attend those once a year services. But we through the internet and apps like Youtube and Spotify we can still enjoy some of these moving pieces.

3. Make a Veritable Feast for the Risen King

Our Easter feast, or what the kids calL Easter Feaster, looks a little different each year but we always find some lamb and my mom makes sure we have asparagus with hollandaise sauce. I'll be on the search today. Ham usually makes an appearance when feeding extended family as well.

Even more than Thanksgiving we make a mountain of sides so we can enjoy the leftovers all week and Mama gets to feast with everyone and spend less time in the kitchen cooking. And it wouldn't be Easter Monday (Wet Monday) without our traditional piece of pie for Breakfast!

4. Welcome All the Bells and Alleluias

Throughout Lent the Alleluia has been banished from Mass and our home so when Easter comes we say it as much as possible on the day of and during the season. It becomes the family amen in most conversations with a spontaneous serenade of G. F. Handel's Hallelujah Chorus. In the same vein, after the Greek tradition, the salutation and response, "Christ is Risen!" then "He is risen indeed! Alleluia!" becomes the children's favorite greeting.

Likewise with the bells, after the gospel on Maundy Thursday they disappear until the congregation rings them with the Easter Vigil Gloria. We have a bell choir set we gave the kids one year for Christmas and for Easter Eve each child gets to put one by their bed to ring when they wake up on Easter morning. Ours were from Amazon. In a similar manner to St. Lucy Day on December 13th we rouse them with the hymn "O Filii et Filiae." It's a joy to see them remembering more and more each year and even the youngest of our littles joining in on the chorus of Alleluias and we make our way downstairs ringing our bells.

5. Hunt for Your Easter Eggs and Repeat as Necessary

At our house we don't have just one egg hunt but as many as the kids choose to set up throughout the season. They recycle the plastic eggs and fill them with whatever snacks or the small toys they can make fit inside them. We're not big on candy and junk in general, by the kids still get into the different cereal, snakes, and fruit. We just use what we have. Stickers, hotwheels cars, hairbands, etc... are some other options that fit the size bill.

They also like to hide our dyed eggs, before feeding them to the pigs. We try to dye them as a quiet activity on Holy Saturday, but any time during Easter will work. When we get to them on Holy Saturday we make them into dressed eggs the next day for our Easter Feast.

The Catholic history of dying easter eggs is that while Mary Magdalene went around spreading the gospel she would bring eggs with her as an illustration of new life. During one such occasion while she was witnessing to Emperor Tiberius, he told her that Christ could not have risen from the dead anymore than the egg in her hand could turn red. And at that moment, indeed, it did! The the whole of the Emperor's house believed and was baptized.

6. Look for the Little Consolation in What We Have

For this year of 2020 specifically our commemoration will not start with a glorious ancient liturgy at our parish but at home. So I made something that I hope will help us all. It's a free Easter at Home Missal so that through a dry mass our families can have a sliver of the history and beauty of the Sacrifice of the Mass we will be missing. You can print it here and find all the included music below.

You can find the readings and propers for an Easter Sunday Dry Mass here starting on pdf p. 1879 The Ordinary of the Mass begins on pdf p. 754.

How our family prays a Dry Mass can be read here.

These pieces would make a great Paschaltide playlist as well so please join us in filling our Easter days with beautiful music.

You can also stream the Easter Vigil Live from my home parish here at 10:30 pm central time.

Lastly, we have Super Simple 3 Step Guides to setting up a home altar and making a Family Paschal candle is your family still needs them.