I cam across this link on pinterest about ‘other things’ to put in Easter eggs for hunts other than candy. Click here to pin it. Besides the annoying ‘anonymous’ person who degraded half the people who had out of the ordinary ideas, it was actually a great post with at least 100 comments of things that other people do. It gave me some great ideas as to what to fill the kids eggs with besides candy. Which leads me to the question:
Do you do an egg hunt at your house or only have a basket with a few eggs in it and maybe a book or other fun item?
When we were growing up, we hunted for our Easter baskets. One time? Mine was in the hamper in the bathroom. That was hard. We had several eggs with candy inside and generally nothing else. I like the simplicity of that, but reading the link above makes me wonder how all out do people go? Big kids (up to 40) hunting for money from the grandparents? really?
As it is, we will do the community Easter egg hunt 2 Saturdays before (both girls can do it this year, but will be in separate categories so I’m glad my husband will be home!) and also my daughter will do one the Monday before Easter at her club program. {I have been stuffing candy into eggs for that this morning before anyone else is up.} Through these 2 things, she will get dozens of pieces of candy. She really does NOT need more than that. We are slowly trudging through Christmas treats, and she gets candy from her club almost every week, even if it’s just a sucker for her bible verse. It’s insane, really…and a lot of it has red dye in it so I try and send that home with nieces and nephews, other kids, etc and let her have mostly chocolate, but it’s tough! Sometimes my mom does an Easter egg hunt, but my girls are the littlest by a LOT of years. The older kids will help them hunt (if one is done). Given all these things, I really don’t see any need to hide eggs around our house with candy in them. I know my 4 yo will appreciate and want to hunt eggs, but she’ll be doing it twice already, so I’d rather just hide empty eggs for the fun of it. Right now we’re using some larger eggs as decorations and for the kids to play with. Open, close, open, close, mommy, help! Open, close. You get the idea.
I think the Easter bunny will be leaving both girls a pretty toothbrush this year. I have heard similar for Christmas stockings or Christmas PRESENTS in total but someone listed on that link “something sweet, something to eat, something to read, something to play with and something they need”. That may be going overboard, too, hard to say. I have a couple of trinkets that I got last year in the clearance sales (pencil, etc) after the holiday and a stuffed bunny for the toddler. I don’t want to leave the big kid out, so suggestions as to what would compete with a stuffed bunny (she already has one) would be appreciated.
I don’t want to go overboard, because by now my older one will remember for the next year. So….
What do you do? Hide 100’s of eggs and have a huge basket? Do something simple? Tell me, let’s talk about it!
When I was a kid, we didn’t have these giant egg hunts and we didn’t do them at church either. We dyed hard-boiled eggs and my dad hid them the night before Easter. In the morning, we got up, got dressed in our church clothes and hunted eggs while they took pictures. Once all the eggs were found, they went into the fridge and we ate them for lunch the whole next week.
My mom usually counted the eggs so we’d know we’d gotten them all. One year, one egg wasn’t found. Months went by and no one thought about it. THen, by chance, my brother John found it. It was robin’s egg blue and he thought it was an abandoned bird’s egg. So he decided to hatch it himself. He hollowed out a spot in the garage (it had a dirt ledge) and proceeded to sit the egg. After a while, he had to go to the bathroom, so he called another brother (Jerry) over to keep the egg warm while he ran upstairs. Jerry sat down – hard, and the most amazing stink filled the garage and the house. Yep, he found the lost Easter egg!
We grew up searching for our baskets and then Grandma would hide some plastic eggs with money and candy in them and we had to find them. One time my basket was in the laundry chute to the basement, covered with clothes. That was one tricky bunny. I got to hide Mindy’s one year, and I put it in Dad’s bowling bag. She couldn’t find it for a long time, so finally I had to string along some Easter grass to give her a clue.
Pretty much the same thing happens for my kids. The bunny comes. So far, the baskets have been hidden together, because they search together. They were in the shower last year. Mark’s parents typically hide filled plastic eggs.
I grew up with a basket full of candy on Easter morning. But I don’t want all of that candy. It’s much more expensive, but this year the kids will be getting Cubs t-shirts, fun bandaids, stickers, pajamas, a book, a few pieces of leftover candy from Halloween (just have to be sure not to get any that are packaged in Halloween wrappers!), and then a few random things per child. Rachel is getting a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse CD. Lauren is getting a cheap Barbie movie I found. She loves those things. Jacob is getting a cheap super Mario cartoon dvd. Jacob will also get one skylanders character, Lauren a necklace and bracelet set I picked up at a craft show and just came across in my closet tonight, adn Rachel a mini cabbage patch doll dressed up like a sheep. Sometimes they get socks and underwear. Sometimes toothbrushes, though they just got those in their stockings. Sometimes bath poofs. when they were younger, they got coloring books, but we have plenty now. I keep a box of small sized trinkets around to use in baskets, stockings, or if I just need a little something. You could stick in a pair of sandels or a hat. Or a couple new colors of play doh. As a kid, I got a jump rope one year, fisher price adjustable roller skates another, and a hula hoop on another. There are lots of ideas!