My mom always made Easter baskets like a mini Christmas, so of course I have to follow in her footsteps because I loved it as a kid. Also, I can’t forget those fantastic plastic eggs that are so much fun to cram candy in for the all important Easter Egg Hunt.
One thing we've incorporated from my husband’s family is putting money in the eggs. Not much...just some pocket change and then a “Golden Egg” that has a $5 bill in it.
But back to the plastic eggs...is it me or do those things multiply? They are like Christmas lights--you never think you have enough so you buy new ones and then find the mother load from last year. Even if I take the candy and leave the eggs at egg hunts we attend I still have enough plastic eggs to stock the shelves of Wal-Mart for the season.
In my family, we always had the same big beautiful baskets. I don’t know where my mom found them, but they were the best.
When my 6-year-old son Ethan was about to have his first Easter I found a great big basket and decked it out with ribbons and hand painted letters. We filled it with every crappy Easter basket item we could find (new parents at their best). It was quite obscene. It was quite a waste of money because every toy broke within 10 minutes. Since then we have opted to get a few toys that the kids want for next Christmas. (Y’all know how that goes. They start making their list a week after Christmas for the following year because they absolutely didn’t get the entire Toys-R-Us under the tree).
The only big project we have left before the “hunt” is dying the eggs. We love this. We must dye three dozen eggs. The kids are way too quick with it. My mom always dyes them with us. She and I are more artistic with ours. There is always the oh-ing and ah-ing over each egg as it’s pulled from its final color bath. She tells the boys that we can do this any time of the year for fun. I don’t think we eat that many eggs any time of the year to make it worth the effort.
What is Easter without a picture with that big creepy bunny? How is it possible that no one has designed a costume for a bunny that isn’t super creepy? I have never cared for rabbits. The white ones with the pink eyes really freak me out. The cute little cartoon bunny out now called “Hop" is a cute bunny. If these people that dress up as the Easter Bunny could dress like that (PLEASE) fewer kids would have meltdowns and I wouldn’t mind waiting in line to have my kids get a picture. Otherwise, I totally need an anxiety pill to snap the picture.
As for spring break, I’m thankful that we don’t have any plans because, of course, one of the boys has ended up with Strep Throat. Yay, staycation! So, the big story “what I did on spring break” that will be told when school gets back in session next week is that the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy came to visit on the same night. Two of my least favorite things: teeth and bunnies. Awesome!
Just remember parents, this is THE LAST candy related holiday until Halloween. I’m thrilled. So are my jeans! As you can probably guess, I eat the candy that I buy for the kids on holidays. It’s probably one of my biggest parenting faults. Stealing candy from my own babies. Shame, shame on me.
Hope you are having a “spring-like spring break and a Hoppy Easter”!
What Easter traditions does your family practice? Do you have an egg hunt at home? Share in the comment section.
It still fascinates me that she made our clothes. Sewing is a dying art! We had family egg hunts, but my dad moved the hunts inside because they hid the eggs so well outside it would cause frustration, lol. And sometimes my parents would forget where they hid an egg. We'd find the egg in the middle of winter. The candy inside would be petrified, lol.