…for the 50 Days of Easter!
We’re about HALF WAY through LENT! How are your Lenten resolutions and programs going? Are you doing any of the 40 Ways for 40 Days?
Some of our resolutions and Lenten practices have been difficult to sustain and I am reminded once again for the need to recommit and refocus…each of these 40 days of Lent! Looking ahead to Easter…I remember that
the Season of Easter is 50 days long!
Banking on our experience from prior years, I think there is a natural tendency to pack a whole lot of celebrating, feasting and chocolate-eating on Easter Sunday and maybe even the couple days after…but we tend to forget that we are still in Easter celebration mode until Pentecost!
This is the most important season of our entire Liturgical Calendar…celebrating that Jesus rose from the dead…for our sin.. for each one of us!
Although all the stores are packed with colorful eggs, little chicks and bunnies…we’re not just celebrating Spring this time of year!
I’m looking for exciting new ways to celebrate Easter…with sustainable celebration
for 50 whole days!
Remember all the activities for Advent?…particularly the Advent calendars counting down to Jesus’ Birthday with little treats and activities? The Easter Season calls for even MORE celebration, sustained throughout the 50 Days!
DIY Catholic Kinder Surprises for the 50 Days of Easter!
Well, I just learned that Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned from the USA (is this true?), but this is what they look like here in Canada.
Photo from RevolvingFloor.com
They are foil-wrapped chocolate (and milky-lined) eggs, each with a plastic popping egg inside. Inside the plastic egg, there is some sort of toy; some are ready-to-play and others are ready-to-assemble. These are pretty popular with my kids…and I thought it was a great opportunity to convert these little gems to be Catholic!
Surely, you have colorful plastic eggs for Easter and you are likely even hosting an Easter Egg Hunt! In addition to the treats opened at Easter, perhaps you will consider adding 50 plastic eggs for an even bigger Easter Egg hunt. These numbered eggs could be found in the Easter Egg hunt…but left unopened on Easter Sunday to be enjoyed one at a time throughout the Easter season. By making special efforts to fill these 50 eggs, mark them with numbers 1-50 and insisting that all but #1 are not opened on Easter Sunday, you can commit to really celebrating the fullness of Easter…and making this Season more memorable for years to come.
When filling eggs 1-50, consider what will make it exciting to open one egg a day for 50 whole days?
It’s difficult to imagine while we’re still in Lent (and the chocolate cupboard is empty!)…that chocolate may likely return in vast supply in just a few weeks. It’s even possible that there will be so much chocolate that those little chocolate eggs won’t warrant all that much excitement throughout the entire season of Easter. What other kinds of surprises and treats will grab attention for those 50 eggs?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if they could reflect our Easter Joy…and our Catholic Faith!?
Maybe you purchased Advent and Lent Quest, but only used one strand of chain links this Lent (there are THREE sets!). Consider rolling up a Saint link for each Easter Egg to celebrate a Saint of the Day in your own family way.
Perhaps you have made your own set of Wooden Painted Saints? The small size peg I use fits easily within the egg. You could scatter a collection of Saints or family member pegs throughout the 50 eggs…or deliberately place the corresponding Saint on their Feast Day egg.
Count ahead to special Feastdays coming up. Carefully fill the specially numbered egg with contents reflecting the Saint or the Feast Day! You may want to write the numbers 1-50 on the days of your fridge calendar from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, to make it easier to keep track of the eggs. I see St George, St Mark, St Catherine of Siena, St Joseph the Worker, St Philip and St James, St Dominic, Our Lady of Fatima, St Matthias, St Isidore the Farmer, St Brendan, St Paschal Baylon, St Rita, St Philip Neri, St Joan of Arc, the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Ascension of Our Lord and St Robert Feast Days…all happening before Pentecost Sunday on June 8!
Perhaps you have started working on little felt finger puppets…or even just cut out the pieces to be assembled and glued once they are removed from the egg. I absolutely LOVE these Lenten Finger Puppets over at Do Small Things with Love!
Change it up! Use a combination of treats, activities, Scriptural quotes and prizes so that the contents in each day’s egg is a surprise!
Consider using scotch tape to reinforce the seam so that the numbered eggs are not mistakenly opened on Easter Sunday…and have a hope of staying intact until they are opened within the 50 Days of Easter!
Display the numbered eggs in order on a mantle or in a fruit bowl …or string them up!
I would love to hear from you!
Do YOU have an idea for something to include in these DIY Catholic Kinder Surprise eggs? Leave your idea in the comments…and if I write about it in an upcoming post (with credit to YOU of course!), you will WIN a Cathletics Craft Kit of your choice! There are over 35 Catholic craft kits to choose from in our Printables Gallery! Check it out!
Oh I really do love this idea! There isn’t much I can think of to add to the idea, however I am attempting to figure out something wonderful for us to do to celebrate the 50 days ourselves here in our home. I can’t keep track of my head let alone 50 little eggs LOL
I love the 50 days of eggs idea! Well I was thinking that my children are now teens and we have no younger children. So I thought it would be good to add scripture passages, relatives birthdays to celebrate with a prayer, also we have mother’s day (so a medal of Mary would be good for them), Also, my daughter is receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation during this time and I will put something in the egg especially for that day for her. I’m sure that I will think of many more items to fill out bowl of eggs.
Already thinking that we have relatives that have passed away during the Days of Easter so happy pictures of them with reminders of the great times we had with them in the eggs for my teens. We are also having our house enthroned during that time so my head is swirling with ideas. Thank you. Who says teens are to old for this. I did so much when they were younger and now it changes but it doesn’t have to yet.
I love all your ideas…including the pictures of relatives who have passed away. I like your attitude! I too have a couple teens and I sometimes hesitate with some of these projects and programs in anticipation of some eye-rolling, but then I’m pleasantly surprised that the big kids enjoy it almost as much as the little ones!
Great ideas! I love the thought of including relative’s birthdays with a special prayer for them! Congratulations to your daughter for the Sacrament of Confirmation. If she is picking a patron Saint…it would be great to include a holy medal or Tiny Saint on that day!
Her Saint is Maria Goretti and yes there will be a necklace with the holy medal blessed by our priest in the egg. We had a priest come to our church with the sacred relics and that was the saint that touched my daughter and my sons was Pope John XXIII so we are so excited for his canonization. So for that egg on that day there will be an item related to the pope. Thank you again.
You amaze me Monica…I have trouble thinking 50 minutes ahead in a day while you not only thinking of the 50 days after Easter, but also think of a really great, fun craft to celebrate the 50 days. I want your brain and creativity 🙂 I really like this idea and think it would be fun! I’ve never heard of Kinder Surprise Eggs, but they look like fun and I wonder why they are banned here? Thanks for sharing another wonderful activity to teach our beautiful Catholic faith to your families!
Love the 50 days of eggs idea, thank you! Making the eggs might be a good project to assign to older kids (assigning a couple of specific days to each). And yes, it’s true about the Kinder Eggs being banned here in the US -our oldest son is 24 and his most prized Christmas treat is STILL the Kinder Eggs my friend sends from Germany. They can’t be sold here because the prizes often come in tiny pieces which don’t pass the choking hazard test.