Our Palm Sunday...

We've been baking and making getting ready for Easter in our house:

Our little dough roosters, ready for the oven...

20 minutes later all golden brown and smelling lovely.

It has become a tradition in our home to make Palm Sunday Easter tree on the Sunday before Easter. The children love this time as we get to spend all day together - we bake these little bread roosters for the top of our Easter Tree, we pick leaves from the garden, we light candles and tell stories. It calms us all down and brings us the lovely expectation that Easter is approaching and reminds us all that life is precious and that we can have reverance in our daily lives.

Personally, I love the symbol of the Easter Tree - the cross shape is covered in greenery indicates that there is always new life and hope after death - the orange represents the life giving forces of the sun and Christ, and the rooster of course crows in a new dawn, new beginnings. On Easter Saturday we will paint eggs and hand them from the branches.

In Christian tradition Palm Sunday was the beginning of Holy Week when Christ entered Jerusalem seated on an ass and the people welcomed him by placing palm branches on his path. Around the world Palm Sunday has been celebrated in different ways. In England the day was called Olive or Branch Sunday, Sallow or Willow, Yew or Blossom Sunday, or Sunday of the Willow Boughs - the people made a figure of Christ seated on an ass, carved out of wood and carried it in a procession to the church.

In Germany and France it was customary to strew flowers and green boughs about the cross in the churchyard. When I was a little girl I would strew rose petals around my garden on Good Friday - I don't know where this came from, certainly nobody ever told me about it, but somehow I tuned into something. This year, my girls and I are taking the journey up to the spot where my sister's ashes are scattered, and we will scatter rose petals to remember and think of her.

Blessings to you all for Easter. I hope you all find time to do whatever is precious to you at this time of year whether you celebrate Easter, Passover or just spend quality time with your loved ones.

Here's how we made our Easter Tree