Keep Christ at the center of your Easter table

Easter Candle: The candle represents the light of Christ, which has overcome the darkness. You might want to start your own family tradition by using a white pillar candle as your family’s Easter candle. Encourage your kids to decorate the candle with stickers, markers or (carefully) pushpins. Light the candle on Easter Sunday and during every meal throughout the Easter season.

Easter Lilies: Using white lilies as Easter decorations in homes and churches came into practice in the 1800s. The white flower is a symbol of purity. The lily’s trumpet-like shape heralds the triumph of Jesus over death. Decorate the pot of this year’s lily with white ribbons or write on a terra-cotta pot with white chalk, “Jesus is alive!” or “Happy Easter!”

Sweet Breads: In pagan times, people made wheat cakes and offered them to the goddess of spring. Christians adopted the tradition by baking special sweet breads, cakes and pastries as a special treat to celebrate Easter and the end of the long Lenten fast.

Lamb: In the Jewish religion, a lamb was sacrificed at Passover time. Christians adopted the symbolism of the sacrificed lamb to represent Jesus as the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world.