25 Ways to Feast During Eastertide 🌻

...it's not nonstop jellybeans

Easter Procession, by Boris Kustodiev (1915) #

I love that even though Lent is long, clocking in at 46 days (minus those six Sundays as brief reprieves), the season of Eastertide is even longer — a full fifty days. It’s a beautiful thing that the Church sees it fit that the season of feasting that follows our long fast is even longer.

But what does this look like in our ordinary lives? What does it look like to truly feast for fifty long days? Surely not endless jelly beans and chores thrown out the window? No, gratefully. …As much as I’m here for the simple delights of life, the laundry doesn’t fold itself and no one should eat that much sugar.

Feasting is much more of a posture than it is a particular activity. To feast means to savor the joys of life, not to gorge on its easily reached-for pleasures. God made pleasure and made it so that life is full of them — but we as humans are meant to hold them in their rightful place, in their divinely-appointed good order.

A season of feasting in the Church calendar means to purposely recognize the appointed reason for celebration — and in the case of Eastertide, the season following the holiest day of the entire year — we celebrate that our God is living, active, merciful, universal, and has conquered death through Jesus’ resurrection. Death has lost its sting! That is a reason to celebrate, for fifty days at least.

Broadly speaking, feasts are meant to help focus the faithful on community ties and personal faith. Specifically, here’s how this could look for us ordinary folks during Eastertide.

1. As mentioned above, feasting is largely a posture more than a set prescription of activities — so in all the below, consider starting each morning with a list of three small things you’re grateful for. It’s a simple way to recalibrate your daily perspective. (This could help.)

2. Enjoy the spring weather with a daily morning walk. Even ten minutes around the block can do wonders.

3. Dig in the dirt. Plant tomatoes, a pot of flowers, or a little window box of herbs.

4. Take your morning coffee outside.

5. Open the windows at home when there’s a lovely breeze.

6. Go barefoot in your front or back yards.

7. Choose a daily devotional read, perhaps a bit lighter than something you read during Lent. Make sure it’s on the short side so it doesn’t feel like a lengthy burden to your morning or evening routine.

8. Read the book of Acts as we move toward Pentecost.

9. Invite some family friends over a few times for a simple potluck dinner and game night.

10. Schedule in intentional pizza (or your pizza equivalent) and family movie nights during Eastertide — plan ahead which movie so you don’t spend an hour debating.

11. Keep inexpensive grocery store flowers in a vase on your coffee table.

12. Keep any Easter or spring decor up through Pentecost.

13. Keep springy candles lit in your home.

14. Or make beeswax candles! This is on my to-try list.

15. Go camping — or, go on a local day trip to enjoy the outdoors.

16. Intentionally watch your body language out and about — no need to smile like a goofball everywhere you go, but work on putting on a pleasant countenance as you run your errands. And say hello to strangers.

17. Buy a simple extra treat on your usual grocery runs — a wedge of fancy-ish cheese, ingredients for homemade ice cream on the weekends, or fizzy drinks that feel bougie with a splash of cut fruit.

18. Visit a local farm and pick fruit, flowers, or veggies.

19. Visit your weekly farmer’s market and buy part of your staples there.

20. Pray for something intentional over the next fifty days — this year I’ve visited this Holy Spirit Novena several times and it’s been a blessing.

21. Declutter stuff — pick a closet or room and fill a box for your local thrift store donations.

22. Write a few letters of encouragement — handwritten postcards or letters are truly a dying art, which makes them all the more special.

23. Eat several meals outside. There’s something about taking what you’d normally do anyway and making it al fresco that makes it feel more special.

24. Intentionally enjoy a weekly Sabbath. If your weekly work tends to live in your head, make extra effort to use your body on this day of rest. If your weekly work tends to keep you physically active, use the day of rest to enjoy something more contemplative, like reading a novel or fiddling with a crossword.

25. End your day with three more small things you’re grateful for. (Again, you could make this a regular habit with this.)

I find it a bit ironic that Eastertide falls during a typically busy season for many of us parents — the end of the school year is often chock-full of events on the calendar and final academic pushes to final exams and projects. Instead of shooing away a season of feasting, make your common busyness all the more reason to make time to feast. Consider 1-3 things from the list above and intentionally schedule them in for the next fifty days — no need to do too much. Or, add your own ideas to the comments below — I’d love to hear them!

Here’s to Eastertide! To remembering that death no longer has the final word and that we are invited into a relationship with a good, loving Father.

Easter blessings,

Tsh