As a kid, I loved Easter. My grandmother would always go all out with the food and making Easter baskets for my sister and I. So when she passed away in 2017, we basically stopped celebrating — it was her holiday and it felt sad without her. Plus, by then my kids were mostly adults and away at college or living on their own, so the joy of putting together baskets for them was not the same.
But this year I decided to make my hubby’s grandkids personalized Easter baskets in the loving tradition of my grandmother. It was a bit challenging only because their parents (understandably) really limit their candy and sugar intake. Easter is traditionally a pretty candy heavy holiday. Also, I would be shipping these baskets from our home in Southern California to them in Northern California and I didn’t want melted, messy chocolate for them to open. That’s not cute. Here’s what I did instead!
The Easter Baskets
First step — baskets!! I opted for wicker baskets with personalized basket liners from Pottery Barn Kids. The liners I chose are plush rabbit liners with their names stitched on the ears. Even though I had their names stitched onto the liners, they still arrived pretty fast! The baskets and liners come in multiple sizes and since I knew I wanted to include some larger items, I bought the largest size. Pottery Barn Kids and Williams Sonoma both have a lot of options for these types of baskets and I’ve also seen the personalized option on Etsy, Amazon and Walmart. If you want to do this option, but are looking to save money — buy the wicker basket somewhere cheaper like Target or Michael’s and add the liner. Or if you are crafty, buy the whole basket someplace affordable and stitch the name or monogram on yourself.
I have to mention, when my kids were small I was always looking for ways to reduce clutter and holiday storage. So every year for Easter, I would buy each child a large sand bucket for the beach and I would use colored Sharpies to personalize it for them. This would act as their Easter “basket”, but would have a second purpose after the holiday as we were heading into summer and beach season. This is a fantastic and inexpensive option that also means less clutter!
The Easter Basket Stuffers
Now to fill the baskets! I tried to combine some practical elements with a lot of fun items. So each child received a beach/bath towel with an animal head hood in their size. I also included pajamas, some craft kits in Easter themes which I found at Walmart, and also plenty of Easter eggs. Rather than fill the eggs with candy in the traditional way, I used small temporary tattoos, Lego blocks, and mini dinosaurs and cars. I excluded the tiny toys for our little two year old granddaughter as they are a choking hazard. She got hair bows, cheerios, and rubber band bracelets. I also included colored bubble wands in each basket, books and plenty of small Easter theme toys from the dollar store.
Other Easter Tips and Tricks
Here is a tip my sister and I always used for our seven kids when they were growing up and had varying ages. We would buy multipacks of colored plastic eggs that had equal numbers of each color. Every child was assigned one color of egg to hunt for. They had to ignore any eggs that were not their specified color. This allowed us to make sure the egg hunt was fair for everyone, that we could hide the egg color assigned for the older kids in harder to find places and higher up. It also allowed us to customize what was in each egg according to the child’s interest, allergies or age appropriateness. The older kids would prefer eggs with dollar bills folded up inside while the younger kids always wanted candy.
For my own children’s Easter baskets when they were living at home, I would plan a treasure hunt for them. Each child would have ONE egg on the counter in their color. Inside the egg was a clue to the next egg. And so on until they finally would find their hidden basket. The older kids got harder, riddle type clues where the youngest would have easier clues to figure out. This is time consuming for sure, but makes Easter morning last longer and is more of an adventure. If you’re trying to rush off for church, this may not work for you. But my kids still talk about how much they loved it and last year they actually flipped it on us and used a treasure hunt to hide mine and the hubby’s baskets!
What are your favorite Easter traditions or tips and tricks your family enjoys? Share with us in the comments!
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