First off, let me preface this with the fact that our family isn’t religious. We do Easter in the fun-joy holiday sense, not for anything deeper. Our traditions would probably be different if that was different, but I’m typing this out in the hopes that some mama out there is able to get an idea or two to make her family’s Easter a bit more easygoing and enjoyable – religious or not.
I have three young kiddos (7, 5, & 3 years old). Each will get an Easter basket from the Easter Bunny, but they won’t look anything like the huge hauls you see on social media. To start, their baskets have been the same exact ones since 2022. When I was pregnant with our 3rd baby, I knew she’d be our last and bought three, smallish wicker baskets to reuse for the rest of their childhoods. The size is important – do not pick the biggest basket you can find. Pick a smaller one that will look full with less stuff; a smaller basket also means you can skip the plastic grass filler. Each of their baskets has a plain chocolate bunny, two or 3 other packaged snacks, and 2 plastic eggs (more on that later). There will usually be one bigger item that isn’t junk – no wind-up hopping bunnies or slime kits here. In the past the big items have been swimsuits, big boxes of chalk, or a new bubble maker. This year they’ll each get a waterproof card game.
On that same 2022 shopping trip, I bought 3 packs of 12 plastic eggs – each pack had 2 colors. The Easter Bunny places 2 eggs in their baskets – those are the colors they can hunt for. This way, each kiddo ends up with the same amount of eggs, and they can be hidden according to ability. My eldest better be ready to get a ladder for some of his eggs this year; I plan on hiding some of his way up in the trees. Their eggs are filled with whatever dye-free, non-melting candy I can find. This year each will have a couple Trader Joe’s jelly beans in them – it’ll be less than half a bag in total for all three of them and they’ll still be stoked.
We try to keep food pretty simple, I’ll make cinnamon rolls & bacon the morning of, just like Christmas. We have a late lunch of deli sandwiches and snack for the rest of the evening while doing a spring themed puzzle. At the end of the night, we stack their baskets and put all the plastic eggs back in the top one to be stored ’til next Easter – if you’re wondering, the Easter Bunny doesn’t mind grabbing them from the garage when stopping by our house – he’s an animal & thus, loves the eco-friendly nature of this. 😉
Overall, it’s a really calm, low-key day in our house. I hope looking back my kids don’t think of the stuff in their baskets or huge events grabbing as much candy as they can. I hope they look back and remember spending time together as a family and feeling loved.
Disclaimer/Reality Check: If you like doing the huge blow out holidays, that’s ok, too. To each their own. This column will be about motherhood, parenting, and homemaking for the most part. It might be a poem about feeling touched out or a reminiscence of how great tiny newborn cuddles were. It might be a counting of how many times my kids call my name in a day – thinking bout getting a clicker for that one. Most importantly, I don’t ever want this column to make another mama think she’s not doing enough. If you’re reading this, I want you to know that you are, you’re doing great, keep it up. Sing it with me: no-one is doing it allllll!
