How I Celebrated Easter and Good Friday as an Amish American Child

Easter was the only time of year that I was allowed to have shredded wheat. While the adults went hungry all morning, I crushed big pillow-shaped bales into my stainless steel bowl.

If you’d like to know how to celebrate the Easter holiday the Amish way, I share my practicing Amish experiences of various aspects, from the Easter bunny to Easter egg hunts to church services, below.

(Click here for the video version of this post.)

Good Friday

The Amish Easter tradition celebrates Good Friday (as the story goes, the day that Jesus was crucified) with a fast all morning, reading the Bible, and praying. But the fasting, Bible reading, and praying is only required of baptized members, not unbaptized children and teens. As soon as the clock passes the noon mark, the fast is over. I have vivid memories of my birth parents talking about how hungry they were and eyeing the clock all morning to see when they’d be allowed to eat again. I dreaded the thought of ever having to be forced to wake up with an empty stomach and go until noon with no food lest I’d end up in hell for breaking that Amish religious law.

I much preferred keeping our particular family tradition for unbaptized members on Good Friday and Easter Sunday mornings. That was…