I am often asked to share resources for celebrating the Easter season. The scriptures are the most important resource of course!!!
Here’s a day by day reading plan for each day of Holy Week.
Here are some additional ideas to help us focus on Jesus Christ during the Easter season. Clearly, we do not need to use all of these! It can become overwhelming if we try to do everything. Pick and choose what best suits you, your phase of life and your vision for feeling the sanctity of the Easter season.
These ideas can be done by yourself, immediate or extended family members, as part of church classes, or in other ways. Let’s celebrate the Easter story with “the same balance, fulness, and rich religious tradition of the…Christmas story” (Elder Stevenson April 2023)!!
President Russell M. Nelson said, “This Easter Season let us worship and praise Him for the peace, hope, light and truth He brings to us.” Here are some ideas to worship and praise Him for Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, the Last Supper and many more. Enjoy!
Posts: Holy Week — A timeline and overview; Palm Sunday -Ideas to celebrate including crafts, activities and sample Palm Sunday church program; Last Supper for Holy Thursday and Passover Simplified; Good Friday-Its importance & ideas to commemorate it with children and adults. Music favorites for the Easter Season, most of which is free online. Recipes/Food for the Easter Season, from simple to complex.
IMAGES are so helpful in overviewing events of the Easter Season. Here are posts with high quality images including detailed events. For Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and the weeks following including Book of Mormon Easter images.
If you would rather watch something: a video of a podcast I was on with Ben Hancock with For All the Saints; and a shorter video of my husband and I sharing Fun ideas for a Christ-centered Easter
DECOR IDEAS: Purples, Golds, Green Colors including palm branches and any spring blooming branches budding or flowering; Greek Easter table scape with red and white eggs; use some of the Good Friday items for display. Risen banner; Or make your own Hosanna banner for Palm Sunday and use the word of the day for each day of Holy Week as display; use the 7 final statements for Good Friday dinner table display or make it into a banner.
Church blogpost I wrote on Ideas for Extending the Easter Season. Liahona article I wrote on Lessons we can learn from the women at the cross and tomb. Blogpost I wrote on the women of Holy Week.
PROPHETS SPEAK ABOUT HOLY WEEK: A video a day from Prophets; Prophets speak about Holy Week, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter in 2023 and 2024. In this a short video President Nelson invites us to think of the peace and hope that Easter brings “because of Him” and (at minute 2:55) to think of the Palms of Jesus’ hands this Palm Sunday and (at min 3:25) he gives us another invitation for Holy Week. In this Video President Nelson encourages us to forgive during the Easter season. Elder Stevenson’s conference talk on “The greatest Easter story ever told.” And Elder Gong’s talk on “Hosanna and Hallelujah“
A FEW ADDITIONAL resources that cost: People in Easter Story Cards– digital download. I made theses cards as a resource for young children, teenagers and families to help us see/learn/discuss the people from Gethsemane on Thursday to the Resurrection Sunday. You choose in your own printer setting what size you want to print them. My daughter made the 7 final statements of Jesus on the cross digital download. Display them in the shape of a cross on the wall, in a banner, as part of your table decor, or make a paper book. Use these or make your own but somehow let them be part of your Easter discussion and decor. A friend made this Easter Journey game (also a digital download) I am going to try for the first time this year.
A Christ-Centered Easter by Joe and Janet Hales an informative, practical book that lays out day by day activities for Holy Week. This was my first introduction to a more Christ focused Easter. Highly recommend! Also, Holy week for Latter-day Saint Families book can be found at Deseret Book or Amazon.
More FREE online resources:
Really cool Compilation of Easter ideas from the Friend and Liahona magazines on the church website. Ldsdaily Blogpost with lesson plan day by day of Holy Week; Easter Week day by day at the church website & Holy Week day by day at church website; PDF Printout Interactive Lesson for Easter Sunday; Short video – LdsLiving Easter with David Butler and Emily Freeman; there are multiple videos. This blog has print outs of scriptures to go with items in an Easter basket. And here is religious subway art decor.
For friends in Utah, here is one Easter Walk idea a friend recommended.
Motivating Easter Quote –Let’s do it!! Elder Gary Stevenson quoted New Testament scholar N. T. Wright as saying, “We should be taking steps to celebrate Easter in creative new ways: in art, literature, children’s games, poetry, music, dance, festivals, bells, special concerts. … This is our greatest festival. Take Christmas away, and in biblical terms you lose two chapters at the front of Matthew and Luke, nothing else. Take Easter away, and you don’t have a New Testament; you don’t have a Christianity.” Elder Gary E. Stevenson, Liahona, May 2023