Looking to fill your kids’ Easter Baskets this weekend? Do it simply with these Six Easy Steps:
- Purchase the biggest basket you can find.
- Dump in a good portion of the money you earned this week.
- Pour in five pounds of sugar.
- Drizzle on three cups of High Fructose Corn Syrup.
- Add a wide variety of artificial colors. (Go ahead, don’t hold back.)
- Toss in several cheap plastic toys (the kind that like to re-locate themselves under your van seats and couch cushions after one short use).
What? You don’t like my Six Easy Steps? Neither do I.
But that’s often what many of us do when we put together Easter baskets for our kids. We spend more money than we mean to. We can’t decide between the jelly beans, the chocolate bunnies or the malted milk balls…so we get all three (plus several of those foil covered cream filled eggs). The little yo-yos with little yellow chicks printed on them are too cute to pass up, so we throw those into the cart too.
Before we know it, we have completed the Six Easy Steps in twelve expensive minutes.
How about taking a look at some new ideas this year? There are so many fun ways to create gifts for your kids that cost just a few cents and a small amount of your time. Here are a few that our kids have enjoyed.
Fill the Easter Baskets
Honestly, my kids enjoy the Easter Egg hunt so much, they really don’t think too hard about what’s in the eggs!
AND…what’s really important about Easter anyway?! :)
What kinds of things do you like to put into your kids’ Easter Baskets? Have any fun ideas or neat family traditions to share?
Brianna @ Heart(h) Management says
This is PERFECT! We’re low on funds and wanted to do something special for some Easter baskets. This is just right. Flubber and bubble bath and healthy treats, here we come!
Thanks, Laura!
Christina says
Love these ideas! Thanks!
Sarah says
Honestly my kid’s grandparents go so crazy for every holiday that we rarely get them anything. They are too little to know the difference right now anyway.
Tracy says
I am sorry but I am sucker for the chicky yo-yo and the chocolate bunny! But I also like to put things like sidewalk chalk and books…you can find these at the Dollar Store :)
Sarah says
My girls are little and so really don’t understand the idea of an Easter basket, but we do them anyway. I tend to fall on the practical side of the Easter Basket tradition. I try to get something they need and that has many uses. This year my oldest is getting a pink lego set that I found on sale really cheap. She’s in need of more quiet activities to have in her room during rest time so this is perfect. And my youngest daughter is getting a little tea set. This way they have things that just don’t get broken a few minutes later or is eaten and then gone. They can spend hours and months playing with their gifts.
We don’t really do a lot of candy in the baskets because I really don’t like them eating it and don’t want the temptation around for myself or my husband. We do put M&M’s in the some of the eggs and coins for my oldest and my youngest gets goldfish or teddy grahams in her eggs. So, it’s still something special. Thankfully they still enjoy the hunt way more than the loot. :)
Great ideas!!
Nicole D says
I love the idea of making personalized bubble bath! How cute!
My family is Orthodox Christian, so we make up a HUGE family basket full of all the our favorite foods we abstained from during Lent (the Orthodox fast is no meat, dairy, fish and eggs, somewhat of an oversimplification). For us that’s things like our favorite kinds of cheese, sausage, BACON, milk chocolate, etc. We also include tradition things like painted Easter eggs, and since I’m Palestinian, Arabic Easter cookies. It’s so much fun to gather with everyone after the Easter (or Pascha) service and we all uncover our baskets and share our goodies with everyone else at church! … Though you’ll still find bright purple marshmallow peeps in our basket. :)
Dusty says
Great post! I am planning on making all of my kids easter basket treats this year as well and that bubble bath idea would be WONDERFUL for my 3 year old! Thanks for the tip!
Rhonda says
Our family has never done the baskets, eggs or gifts on Easter but we do have a special tradition that we started several years ago. On Easter instead of the traditional ham dinner we have our version of a Passover meal. We have roasted lamb (Jesus is the passover lamb), herbed potatoes, romaine salad (bitter herbs), Horoset, matza bread(unleaven bread), grape juice and a flourless cake for desert. Our children look forward to this special meal every year and the symbology helps us all focus on what we are celebrating. Jesus!!;-)
Audra says
Bubbles for blowing outside (which can also be home made) & sidewalk chalk.
Alison Thomas says
When I was little, we never used the plastic, candy-filled, eggs. We would dye hard boiled eggs and then hunt for those. In my opinion, they are even more fun because the not so bright colors make them even harder to find! After they were all collected we would make a nice Easter Egg salad.
Amy @ Finer Things says
As we do with Christmas stockings, we try to stick in some “you needed this anyway – aren’t you glad the Easter Bunny brought it for you?” things along with a little candy left from *ahem* Halloween… ;-)
This year it’s summer Crocs (yes, Crocs — my cousin found them for $5 per pair!!!) and free Buddies soap.
mtmommy says
Thank you…. We have recently become a One gift (preferably homemade) per holiday house… I was having a hard time deciding what to do about the “hunt” these tips are great!!! I am in the midst of knitting each of our God children and our daughter a little stuffed bunny and making prayer cards for their very simple but pretty and special baskets… Love the hunt ideas! Thank You!! Erika
Taryn says
Love your 6 steps. I don’t see what is so wrong? = )
Loving the fruit leather- so delicious!
Step says
This will be the first year that I haven’t broke down and bought a bunch of candy for their baskets. Nope, not one piece (aren’t I mean?). I remember my mother filling our Easter baskets to the brim with jelly beans, chocolate eggs, bunnies, peeps — you name it. Well, my kids don’t like jelly beans and my eldest son is sensitive to chocolate. We really don’t need the extra sugar anyway.
When my 3 were younger, their Easter “baskets” were actually large sand pails with shovels filled with a little candy and assorted spring/summer toys like bubbles, sidewalk chalk, a jump rope, sand toys, maybe a stuffed animal for my daughter, etc. Now that they are older (11,9,7), I’m thinking about just getting them one gift that they could use. Maybe a book that they would like, a travel case for their DS hand-held games, a nice journal for my dd — something like that. Sadly, they are all getting a bit old for egg hunts and we don’t do the Easter bunny. Ah, the years go by fast when you have littles.
lcg says
I, on the other hand, sent my 3 college girls shoe boxes with reeces eggs, fudgy eggs, peeps and M&Ms. And beanie baby bunnies. And a chocolate rabbit :} Hopefully they’ll share with their roomies.
chinamama4 says
My best discovery is to not have the baskets be so big in the first place! Then they look really full with just a few items! My mom found cute fabric ones and had them personalized, and we use them every year. I put in a little bit of candy (since I’m such a Scrooge about candy the rest of the year). I love the $1 crafts at Joann and Michael’s – great rainy day activities throughout the spring. Also, cute socks, pencils, bubbles, lip balm – stuff I’ve collected on the cheap since New Year’s.
Stacey in Nebraska says
What kind of shampoo do you use in that bubble bath? Yours is soooo clear, I love it. I am a bubble bath scrooge, so if I used the organic natural shampoo, I might let them use it :-)
Also, have you ever made strawberry fruit leather?
Thanks, your Nebraska neighbor…Stacey
onemotherslove says
I never have gotten into putting a basket together. My kids just like to play with their empty baskets & hunt eggs. I posted about it here:
http://whatsheupto.blogspot.com/2009/04/whats-in-your-easter-basket.html
Blossoming Skillet says
I but year round stocking stuffers for our family so when it comes to Easter, we just purchase their favorite piece of candy and a few little treats and call it day.
Goodwill last weekend had clearance on new Easter baskets (4 for a $1), plastic eggs (50 for $1) and other little spring treats.
Beth says
Lol, funny six steps! I’m guilty of them all. Time for a change I suppose ;)
justanotherdayinparadise says
My mil and I typically get along. The time she hurt my feelings the most was one year at Easter. My family NEVER put anything in our Easter eggs–we just hunted them for fun. My husband and his brother wouldn’t have dreamed of hunting eggs unless there was candy or money involved. No one told me this, so I foolishly brought (unfilled) eggs for my neice and nephew to hunt. Everyone made fun of me. . .
Serenity Summers says
I am guilty of all six steps!!! This year its time for a change! Flubber and craft supplies here we come! Plus, all my kiddos need new toothbrushes (ironic timing) so they will be getting character ones I am usually too cheap to buy but they love! Thanks for the encouragement to be “different”….
PS: I also want to make the bubble bath. What kind of shampoo do you use?
Joy says
What a great post! A great reminder that the holidays are WAY TOO commercialized!
We don’t teach our kids the “Easter Bunny” we teach the the true meaning of Easter our Saviour’s resurrection!
I am going to try a couple of your recipes thanks for sharing! Easter is such an important holiday I am so glad to know others think so and its not just about money and a bunny!
Joy
Lenetta says
This year, the 2-year-old is getting homemade bathtub crayons and fingerpaint. Next year, I’m thinking homemade sidewalk chalk and paint. I’d like to make some kind of treat that I could put in plastic eggs for her to find – I don’t think we’ll dye them this year. Since I gave up chocolate for Lent, there WILL be some sort of chocolate in MY Easter basket!
Alex says
Vaguely spring, baby animal or bunny themed paperback books are nice. You can often find them way before Easter secondhand.
DorthyM says
I have always loved making rather than buying Easter baskets each year , and yes I have been guilty of going Ma wee bit overboard on the candy. A few years I prided myself on making the chocolates myself (translation: melting the little discs and pouring it into molds). I would like to try the flubber with my son again this year, and maybe a cd since he is a teenager. Plus some snacks. But the bunny stays. No, not for him. For ME!! Dove bunny or Gold Lindt please, lol. It’s tradition.
Lisa says
I hope you all still don’t mind the money change i put in each of the eggs. I feel like they can get what they want that way.
Laura says
Oh goodness, don’t mind at all. We don’t even mind that you put a little candy in them. Your Easter egg hunt is something the kids look forward to every year. We LOVE it!!! Can’t wait to see you!!!!
Sheree says
When my boys were small I always did the Easter baskets and I filled them with a new belt, tie, and socks for church as well as trinkets like pencils or crayons or small toys (not.the cheap plastic ones but rather wooden toys like tops or good yoyo’s) and a small bit of candy. Then we added more kids and a lower income and their baskets contained a bag of jelly brans and a couple plastic eggs with coins in them. This year I am working on usable things for the baskets. Things like ribbon hair ties for my daughter and soon-to-be DIL, a new insulin pump pouch for my diabetic son, a cellphone arm band holder for the teens, etc. And they will get homemade cookies and maybe the traditional sweet tart chicks & bunnies that we love.
CK Bakery Shop says
Love your ideas!! Our nephew is only 1, but in a couple of years these ideas will definitely work!! Thank you!!
Jen says
Thanks for these ideas! I was just looking for something for this coming Easter when we’ll be doing our first basket for our 1.5 year old. I was wondering if I could try making my own chocolate bunny by using your fudge recipe and pouring it into a greased bunny-shaped candy mold… I’m kind of sentimentally attached to the chocolate bunny. Ever tried anything like that? I might just have to try it myself to see. And even if it doesn’t end up looking very pretty, it will still taste delicious I’m sure!