Mathew 28:6
Testimony: Way back when, (in 2018), we tried to host a real Passover with 8-10 other families from our children’s Catholic grammar school. Although I thought it was a great hands-on-learning experience for kids to explain why Christians take communion, it was kinda a bust because the kids didn’t really like the food:(
In fact, one of the Dads, jokingly afterwards, told me, “Christian’s like their bread like they like their Messiah, Risen!”
Solution: Since then, I have tried to host a one day Passover each year, (during Holy Week) as a tradition just for our own family of 6. It is fun to get creative and try and brainstorm foods that don’t contain leaven but that our kids already love (or at least like). Our focus is on telling the story of the Exodus.
Example Menu 2025:
Smith Family Passover
Main: Lemon Chicken
Side: Mash Potatoes
Dessert: Strawberries with Nutella
Matzo
Sparkling Cider (w/ real wine glasses!)
Example Menu 2025:
Smith Family Easter Sunday Brunch
Main: Fancy Nancy’s Holiday Quiche
Side: Banana Bread
Side: Leftover Matzo
Side: Refrigerated Entenmann’s Chocolate & Glazed Donuts
Side: Fruit plate w/ Strawberries, Bananas & other Fruit
The Smith’s Passover 2026
The above menus are just examples of our Passover and Easter Sunday Brunch Meals from last year (2025). Our four children absolutely love mashed potatoes and they are “leaven free” so this is a great food for me (as Chef Mom) to make because all our children love it! If your child/dren don’t like mashed potatoes then you want to brainstorm and think of a main, side dish and dessert they truly love to try and get this tradition to be something they look forward to!
Our kids are much older now (ages 22, 20, 17 and 14) than when we started in 2018 (14, 12, 9 & 6) and Emily is away in college and Mikey is working so it is just gonna be four of us this year! Last year our oldest, Emily, made her Out-of-This-World Lemon Chicken. However, this year she is back at college and unable to cook. I’m short on time because we are leaving out-of-town so I’m gonna make it easy and buy an already cooked rotisserie chicken at Sprouts, make mashed potatoes and call it a one-day Passover! This makes it quick and easy and will leave leftovers for Mikey when he gets home from umpiring.
The most important part during the Passover Meal is focusing on retelling the story of the Exodus through the meal tradition. You can retell the story in your own words or have someone who is Jewish join you (as we were blessed to have back in 2018). Then have her/him tell the story that was passed on to her/him from their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, ect.!
During the meal, talk about whether or not the children think it is hard to give up leaven for one day. If it is not difficult for your child/ren (especially because you have provided a bunch of foods they love!) talk about if it would be hard to give up leaven all week as the Jewish people were mandated to do! Of course it depends on how much your kids like carbs!! If giving up leaven is not difficult for your child because they don’t care for it anyways, talk to your child about something they have given up before. If they are Catholic maybe they gave up meat on Fridays or they picked something for Lent to give up for 40 days? If your child has never “given up” something then you can remind them of when they were babies. Maybe they had to give up a favorite blanket “lovie” or pacifier “binky” and how they felt and how they feel about it now?
Talk to the bread winner or the bread maker of the house about whether it would be hard to throw all the leaven in your house away for an entire week! To me that would be so wasteful and expensive! I think I would try and use everything ahead of time so I didn’t waste the time shopping and our hard earned money but was still abiding by God’s law!
The point is to try and tell her/him your experience(s) of giving something up. Sometimes it can be a more serious sacrifice like something they had to give up because of an illness or an accident or a real God-given trial we have experienced. The conversation focus should be on a sacrifice and how it was difficult (or sometimes very difficult) but now we are happy and thankful God brought us out of it!
I love how in the TV show the Chosen they start saying, “It would have been enough!” Dennis Prager (in his Passover for Quarantine 2020) talks about how this is really the main prayer recitation. This part of the tradition is really teaching the children gratitude (even in difficult circumstances) but again you can take this celebration as far as you want depending on your child(ren)’s social and educational level(s)!
Focusing on the Jews going through slavery in Egypt and God freeing them quickly before the bread could rise was God’s mandate for the tradition! Jesus sacrificing his body (bread) on the cross means when we believe in His death & resurrection we quickly have eternal life! Through the tradition, God was trying to teach the generations of parents (who have loving relationships with their children) all kinds of lessons but the main lesson was that everything works out for God’s reasons! Romans 8:28 say “And in ALL things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” The Passover is all about the Jews being freed quickly from physical slavery in Egypt and Easter is all about belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection quickly freeing us from physical and spiritual death!
If you are Christian, you can also have family members share stories of their Exodus from sin or an abusive relationship (depending on your children’s ages and if you feel it is good timing in your own child’s/children’s social-emotional development and your relationship with them).
Just talking about the Exodus, yearly, and how God mandated (4 times in the Bible) that parents tell their children the story as a celebration tradition will bring blessings into your family life! It is a great reminder of how quick God was, and is, able (he has absolute control) to bring people out of slavery to man and/or sin!
I would also highly suggest retelling the story through the Bible. For younger children, use children’s bibles with illustrated pictures. This retelling of the story each year (at your child’s social-educational level) will help the Holy Spirit individualize your children’s understanding of the Exodus, to fit each of her/his needs each year which is the miraculous part of this age-old God-mandated Jewish tradition:)
Attach Dennis Prager (2020 quarantine Passover Seder)
If you have the time and want to host a real Sedar/Passover Dennis Prager hosts a fabulous video example of his Passover during quarantine. You don’t need to get this detailed to start (especially if you are a parent of young children & feeling overwhelmed) but if you have the time to watch the video and implement more of the tradition he explains the symbolism of salt water, parsley, a hard-boiled egg, horseradish, charoset (nuts, raisins & honey) and haggado. Again, if you have young children, I would strongly suggest making it easy to start. It’s more the repetition of the meal tradition and retelling the story each year that helps the children understand why they take communion and that God/Jesus has all control to deliver them from evil! In our real family life of just discovering celebrating Passover, it has been fun to add new things every year as children get older because it keeps it challenging and fresh for the kids and us as parents who are hosting the tradition!
As far as dessert, our kids absolutely love farm fresh strawberries and they taste like candy dipped in Nutella so this is an easy & delicious dessert to nibble on while your watching an Exodus related movie or TV show such as:
Vegie Tales (young kids will love these!)
The 10 Commandments with Charlton Heston
The Chosen Season 5 (w/ flashback episodes of the Passover in every episode!)
Again, don’t feel overwhelmed! You don’t have to read every story or watch every movie/TV Show/YouTube clip every year! Parents just exposing children to the Exodus story through a meal tradition is a social- hands-on-experience enough and helps children understand how the Exodus relates to communion, Holy Week and/or Lent which will educate them as Historians, Judeo-Christians and ignite the Holy Spirit inside of them:)
On Easter, especially for young kids, you can make their favorite treat with leaven and have them compare it with the leftover Matza! Our children love Banana Bread, brown rolls and strawberry shortcake so those foods with leaven would work well for our children when they were younger but you know your child/ren’s favorite leaven-packed carb to eat so have the treat and the Matza to compare and contrast! It makes good Easter conversation!