We are having a little bit of a scramble, because we realized at this late date that we need something to REPLACE the Egg Hunt this year. We have done an Egg Hunt to one degree or another since Rob was a preschooler. First it was just Paul and me hiding a few eggs for Little Rob; and then we hid them for Little Rob and Little William; and then my parents started coming over and sitting in lawn chairs to watch, and the adults would pass around buckets of candy; and then my brother and sister-in-law had kids and started attending too; and then Rob and William were too old to want to hunt and so they started helping with the hiding; and then it was the pandemic.
And last year, the first year of the pandemic, we found that our kids seemed to have outgrown the hunt entirely: the younger three looked for eggs for awhile and then were sort of floppy about it—like, “HOW many more do we have to find??—like that. Which is not a fulfilling thing, when you as the parents have spent considerable effort to put together something fun. But on the other hand, our youngest is a teenager, so we can’t say it was a total surprise.
I guess, though, that I was cruising along picturing us all just eating the candy out of buckets as usual. But without the hunt first, that doesn’t seem right. So instead I want to do Easter Baskets. BUT: ABSOLUTELY NOT the Christmas-stocking kind of Easter basket, with presents and toys. I am not up to it, and don’t want to start with that; it’s PLENTY to do it once a year with stockings. What I want to do is the kind I grew up with: chocolate rabbit plus miscellaneous candy, and the basket was hidden somewhere in the house. I remember one year my brother and I made our parents re-hide the baskets because we found them immediately and felt not enough effort had been put into it.
We are all set on baskets: they’re not gorgeous or anything, but the kids used baskets to collect eggs, so I don’t need any of those. I am not buying Easter grass: I was charmed by this lovely green-and-flowers kind, and used it for an Easter package for my niece and nephew—and as soon as I emptied it into the box, I realized my mistake. And that wasn’t even the clingy plastic kind! ANYWAY, I am using tissue paper. I had some trouble finding a package of just green, so I am changing tacks and I will use different colors to code the baskets: Edward should search for the basket with RED tissue paper, and Henry the basket with ORANGE tissue paper, and so on.
I have ordered chocolate rabbits, and have made what is probably a mistake by having them shipped; is there ANY chance that hollow chocolate bunnies will arrive unbroken? Well, in the moment it seemed like the right thing to do: getting them ON THEIR WAY. I would have chosen a solid-chocolate option but oddly none of those were available for shipping.
(image from Target.com)
All the kids sleep late now, so Sunday morning I will get up and assemble the baskets and Paul will hide them, and it will be a little Easter surprise! And kind of fun to do a holiday a different way.
Well, this sounds very fun! I have never thought of hiding the basket itself! I still have an Easter bunny/egg-hunt enthusiast in my home (one with a healthy amount of skepticism, coupled with a desire to believe and sustain the magical feeling), so we will continue that as long as she’s willing to do it — and transitioning to a basket hunt when she outgrows the egg hunt is a great idea.
My stroke of genius this year was to order a bunch of fun snacks and treats from Universal Yums to put in her basket! We gave a friend a UY subscription for Christmas and then she gave F a subscription for her birthday and it is SO MUCH FUN (as you know!) and we’re enjoying trying all the snacks SO MUCH that I am beyond excited to try EVEN MORE THINGS for Easter.
(The Easter bunny will still put traditional Easter candy in the eggs and hide them, but now we’re at a stage where Mom adding Universal Yums to the basket is a fun surprise and not a way of Killing Any Magic, because obviously the Easter bunny can bring the usual Easter basket items to which one has become accustomed, but Mom can add stuff as she sees fit, which also turns out to be true for Christmas stockings/Santa.)
This sounds like a great replacement for the egg hunt!
I am still planning on doing Easter Bunny style things (Easter basket with a couple of fun things plus candy, eggs hidden around the house with candy inside). But I did mention something about the Easter Bunny to my daughter recently and she said, “Oh, right the Easter Bunny,” in a tone of forced enthusiasm, so perhaps this is the last year for that. We’ll see.
I haven’t bought the Easter candy yet. It looks as though I will be forced to go INSIDE Target to get some, because very little seems to be available via curbside pickup. I hope it’s not all gone before I get there, but we take what we can.
This year we’ll do what we normally do and just hide a few packages of foil-wrapped eggs above short-dog-reachable height. It’s generally not warm enough weather here to do an egg hunt outside except in the latest of Easters: I remember a couple of years from my childhood that must have been late Easters in April, coupled with early springs, where we had grass, but there are just as many with snow still on the ground.
But because I’m doing a bit Extra for all pandemic holidays, I’m also filling up a galvanized metal bin for the whole family with a few fun things: colourful bottles of pop, some bath bombs, small pocket-sized hand sanitizers in nice scents, chocolate rabbits, a new bath towel for me, etc.
I was also charmed by the green and flowers kind and have it ready to go for my month old baby’s first easter basket…what is the mistake??
I exaggerate a bit—but the little paper flowers were a bit exuberant and went hither and thither as I was trying to arrange it. And although it’s better than the plastic kind, I was reminded of how Easter grass is just, like, a million little strips of paper, which end up going kind of everywhere.
I think this sounds very fun! I have always placed the kids’ baskets just outside their doors for them to wake up and find, but hiding also seems fun. I’m putting that on my future list. This year my son turns 4 on 4/4 and Easter so we are doing a backyard egg hunt / birthday party. Please everyone cross your fingers it is not too cold or rainy! Hoping to stay distanced and outside with the few people we invited.
What a PERFECT solution!! I love it. <3
that sounds perfect and fun. it makes me nuts that everything is turned into a massive amounts of candy and toy holiday. easter toy sales??? easter toys AREN’T A THING.
do you watch the holderness family? i like them. their st. patrick’s day was SPOT ON. I feel that way about most holidays. I am a grinch.
We don’t do Easter (we are not religious, but do celebrate a secular Christmas). Easter used to be the day that I took the kids to the Zoo, but they’ve outgrown that outing. Of course, there will be lots of Reese’s Easter Eggs in the house, because that is the superior holiday Reese’s format (don’t even get me started on the Halloween pumpkins, they are NOT the same). Depending on the weather, we’ll probably take the dog on a long walk and maybe have brunch when the kids get up?
Oh, that sounds fun! My parents hid our Easter baskets (never in creative places, just the bedroom closet or whatever) and it was always fun to find them.
I am weirdly excited about Easter. My daughter is 1, and so far I haven’t done much for any holidays. I figure, it’s really not for her at this point, it’s for me, so no need for me to do anything unless I enjoy it. So despite the urgings of grandparents and daycare to make Valentines! and do St. Patrick’s Day crafts! and dress her in red-white-blue on the Fourth! and so forth, I have been pretty shruggy about holidays. Except Christmas, which was fun for me, but she was kind of confused and overwhelmed. But, there’s a big difference between a 9-month-old and a 1-year-old, and she’s starting to *get* stuff happening around her! I think she might actually understand a simple egg hunt, and I know she would like unpacking her basket.
I agree that toys are completely unnecessary for an Easter basket…but I wanted stuff in her basket and she’s too little for candy. So, she’s getting empty plastic eggs and a few Easter board books. (I am making the great sacrifice to eat the jelly beans and the Reese’s eggs on my own.) And actually, I really like the idea of an Easter book in the basket every year! There seems to be an unending supply of little kids Easter books (we are not religious, so anything with springtime/bunnies/chicks counts). I think an Easter book + candy might be our Easter tradition.
When I had one year olds I got MANY minutes of peace from putting 2 or 3 cheerios in each egg. For days and days it was a hit. It was a fun activity for a very long time once they figured out the grip strength needed to open the eggs.
Ooh, what a great idea! It hadn’t occurred to me I could put something other than candy in the eggs, duh. I was just going to hide empty eggs, but she loves cheerios, shaking things, and putting small objects in containers, so this will take it to the next level. I might get, like, six or seven whole minutes of entertainment out of this egg hunt!
Yes! You might have time to drink some hot coffee. Other things we put in eggs for that age: yogurt melts, puffs, halved blueberries, steamed carrots, peas. I was willing to wash or throw out the eggs if it gave me time to unload the dishwasher in peace
You mean you don’t love unloading the dishwasher while the toddler is lunging for all the steak knives? It’s our evening dance.
I realized with no small amount of panic the other day that Easter is, like, THIS COMING WEEKEND, who let THAT happen!? So one flurry of Amazon ordering + one trip to Giant later, we are now all set. My kids are 3 and 4, so I prefer more of a toy/activity focus over a candy focus, but I also feel like NO candy is no fun, so we’re doing some Fun Items They Kind Of Already Need, like bubble bath and new kid-sized umbrellas, and some candy. I’ll put some of those big fat “jelly bird eggs” jelly beans in plastic eggs for an egg hunt. We may or may not manage to dye eggs 🤷♀️
I shipped my son some fun chocolate treats which should arrive today, along with boring household stuff for his dorm.
Our Easter basket tradition was always a bit of candy, but mostly new slippers (flip-flops) and sometimes a bathing suit, when we were small enough that our mother could choose it for us. We are from Hawaii, but all my Easter memories are from living in Oregon, so the whole thing always seemed wildly optimistic.
When we got to where it was more teenagers than children…my mother started filling the plastic eggs with coins and cash. Grandma wants an egg hunt, by golly. Probably discontinue it this year, but it was fun to watch the big kids scramble for those eggs. Quarters means car wash for the teen drivers in my family.
I have always, always done a basket for my son (yes, the one who will turn 27 in October) – we never hid it though; that would have been fun!
This year though, I just looked up and realized OH – Easter’s almost here! And, well…this year, I just can’t be bothered to muster up the time, energy or thought of putting together a basket. Plus he doesn’t really eat that much candy and is more looking forward to Easter dinner and dessert. Instead, I just bought him a chocolate bunny. If I have to, I’ll make it up to him next year.
My daughters are 19 and almost 17 and for the last several years I’ve done an Easter Challenge. I hide eggs in reasonably challenging (but not too much) places, but the eggs are only definitivelt acquired once the accompanying “challenge” has been successfully completed (the girls always found the eggs way too fast otherwise).
Challenges include finding a specific sentence on a specific page of a specific book and translating it into another language (my daughters speak 3 languages – I’m British, we live in France, and they’ve learned Spanish), doing 10 push-ups, finding a DVD with a specific thing or word on it, finding an object with something specific on it, explaining something they’ve learned this year to me, skipping for 2 minutes, solving a puzzle of some kind, etc.
At the end, they “win” a “big” prize – this year, a new board game for our collection.
We’ve done this for a few years now and it’s still a big hit, even though it’s quite a bit of preparation. But I don’t see my elder daughter much, so this is a fun thing we all do together 😀
My mom always did a treasure hunt for us. it was pretty epic and very hard. A clue might be music notes we had to play on the piano. The tune might be London Bridges and then we’d have to ride our bikes a mile to a bridge to find a clue. Another might be a clue to look something up in the dictionary or encyclopedia and then the definition would lead us to the clue. And we’d have 15-20 of these clues. It almost always ended with one of us in tears and my parents laughing at how silly we were. My mom told me she was putting one together for my 2 year old nephew, but “no one will cry” ;)
My son (13) actually pleaded to have an egg hunt this year. “M had one when she was my age!” Yes, when you were 10. At this rate, I’ll be doing them literally forever. I really like the idea of hiding the whole basket!
My favorite Easter egg hunt was the one before kids. We left out a candy dish full of pastel Hershey kisses, and the cat took the little tags in her mouth and carried them all over the house. The Easter Kitty left us surprises we kept finding for weeks!
I am now 37, my youngest sibling will be 30 this year. We currently have three kids between us. And when we’re back at my parents’ house we STILL make them hide eggs for us. So don’t lose hope if it’s a tradition you enjoy! You might well find that once the floppy stroppy teenage days are past they encourage you to bring it back.
This year my brother and sister will be able to see my parents – they live close enough to do it in a day, and garden visits are now allowed under UK Covid rules. But we live 5+ hours away so it’s not an option for a day trip, especially with a toddler. So we will be at home, I’ve got big eggs to hide for the kids – and we’re contemplating joining forces with friends who have kids the same age. Then I’ve also ordered bits for Easter baskets – just a little Easter tree ornament, a bigger Easter egg and a little chocolate chick for each of them, nothing fancy. But they needed new baskets for the egg hunt so it seemed fun to combine. Unfortunately the baskets were the kind where they don’t give you a colour choice and it’s an assorted mix… and they gave us two very pink ones. My son is 21 months, he won’t care right now – and I certainly don’t. But I’m annoyed at the prospect of having to replace it in a year or two if he hits the ‘pink is for girls mummeeeee!’ stage.
I don’t know if that “scramble” pun was intentional, but I am loving it!