My kids got chocolate turkeys from their Grandma at Thanksgiving last year. They were happy about the gift but not off the walls excited. Their minds were not blown by the bird shaped chocolate but mine was.
For a few weeks after I kept coming back to this sweet and innocuous gift. It rattled around in my head.
There were no chocolate turkeys in my childhood. A gift at Thanksgiving would have been unheard of. In fact, after a certain age, a young age, the Easter bunny arrived a day or two after Easter with discount candy which by my early teens I bought myself if I had the money. We simply couldn’t afford these luxuries and there were no grandmas or aunts and uncles around to spoil me with them.
While I never got these types of extras I was surrounded by children who did. I remember kids returning from the Easter long weekend with tales of new ski suits from the Easter bunny or clothing and books. They got enough chocolate to last a few months. It was evident from a young age that the Easter bunny that was coming to my house was a different than the one that was coming to their house.
Chocolate turkeys make me see how different my childhood was from my own children. They are the rich kids I envied. They have warm winter jackets, Grandmas that spoil them and they will likely never go to school without a lunch unless they forgot to take one.
Some parents like me, that grew up without a lot, want to spoil their children in all the ways they dreamed of getting spoiled themselves. I get that. But I find myself holding back, wanting them to have less than their peers, not just because of our minimalist-ish lifestyle, but because I don’t want them to take things for granted.
I’ve caught myself a few times saying to my oldest, you know when I was your age there was no money for swim lessons/new shoes/going to the movies/whatever small pleasure we’re currently enjoying. He is starting to grasp that things cost money, some people, many people, don’t just get hot dinner/birthday gifts/a ride on the Aquabus to see a kids theatre show with pre-show fish and chips with their aunt. I’ll be working on it for years to come but I want, I need, them to see how fortunate they are.
So we keep Easter baskets small. Yes, I see that there is a trend or tradition for gifts at this time of year. New clothing is a big one. Easter baskets stuffed not only with treats but toys and action figures and books and things to welcome spring and better weather. But I’m setting the bar very low for our family. I want to keep that threshold of excitement, of anticipation, of appreciate of the smallest of gifts, at around the a few chocolate eggs level.
And instead of the stuff I’m going to spoil them with time. We’re going away for the weekend and I’m looking forward to some rainy beach time and all five of us attempting to sleep in one motel room. I hope and dream that this will be one of those lovely memories for us as a family because I will straight up confess that taking our 16 month old just about anywhere is exhausting right now.
So kids, for Easter 2016 you got a modest amount of chocolate, no toys or clothing and your parents braved the ferries and motels and beaches and all the sand you are bound to bring home in the cuffs of your jeans and rain boots because that is the gift we really want to give you: time. Time to be kids, time with us and time with each. Time not to be rushed – because many mornings we are! – and time to wander and explore somewhere new. You can ask for that How to Draw Trains and Trucks book for your birthday or save for it yourself.
How do you celebrate Easter in your home? Do you notice a trend towards large gifts for Easter?
I’m totally reading this after Easter but I definitely thought about this in the last few weeks. Last year, my kids didn’t really get a lot for Easter because we were getting ready to move and didn’t have much money. This year, I probably went overboard and got them way too much stuff. My oldest, who is almost ten recently asked me if we could just spend the day together, me and him, eating donuts and watching movies. He craves my time more than anything else right now. Of course he loves candy, but he remembers the games we played and the things we did way more. Great post.
This post really resonated with me. This year, we have our three children, ages 1, 2, and 4, as well as two foster daughters ages 2 and 7. My family never did Easter baskets growing up (we are religious and felt it detracted from the focus on Jesus), so it’s weird to me that my parents are doing it for my kids now. Once the Easter holiday was over, my house was so full of the various candy and trinkets they received – all said and done, we ended up with 7 quart jars packed full of candy, 5 reusable Easter bags, 15 little tubs of Playdoh, 5 pairs of silly glasses, multiple glowsticks, 5 new packs of crayons and 5 new packs of sidewalk chalk, 5 new coloring books, and a whole bunch of Hot Wheels and dressup jewelry. If it sounds overwhelming, that’s because it was! I observed my children not appreciate the candy because they had the toys, and not appreciate the toys because they had OTHER toys. I did not anticipate this volume, and need to figure out a way to talk about this with our families. My kids got more stuff at Easter than I ever did at Christmas!!!
Great post. I bribe in keeping expectations low, wen though we could easily do so much more. I do believe my son is much more appreciative of things as compared with others his age.
For Easter…we reuse the same basket. No plastic eggs, and the “grass” is the same shredded green paper that’s still hanging in from years ago. No toys, just consumable, sugar laden treats.
We stopped “doing” Easter when our older two were like 6 & 8. We had begun to study the origins of holidays & realized that Easter was something we did not want to observe. We had done egg hunts before that, but nothing huge- we would hide plastic eggs around the house with little treats, toys & money inside, using the same baskets each year. We have been attending Passover Seders for years now, & it is all our younger 3 have ever known which makes it easy!
Our kids get a normal Easter basket! (Well, I guess what I think is normal), and every year the stuffed bunnies or chicks from years past show up again in their baskets, what magic! 🙂 What I do is stash away the Easter stuffed animals a couple months after Easter when they aren’t being played with anymore, then pull them out again the next year. Amazingly, the kids have not caught on and they think that its the Easter bunny,
I keep a small box with the Easter baskets and plastic eggs and stuffed animals stored away. Each year I refresh things a bit with a new small chick or bunny and they all get a small chocolate bunny. No toys or books or clothes or big vacations.
We dye eggs the day before, its a lot of fun. Our favorite part is hiding all the eggs and finding them over and over. The kids hide for the parents and visa versa!
Its simple but doesn’t seem that way to the kids, they love this Holiday!
So much GOOD here, Rachel! We just did a little bit of candy for our children too. My parents’ tradition was to always give us a Christian book of some sort with the candy. While I loved that tradition, I chose not to buy my kids books this year. And then I found out that my mom had picked up four books for my kiddos. *Sigh* At least my bookshelves won’t be growing by 8 books instead of 4! 😉 Happy Easter to your sweet family.
With my daughter having an Easter hunt before Easter and my in laws who may or may not go crazy each year with Easter she normally gets either one thing from me and maybe a bit of chocolate or nothing at all. With her spring break this coming week I plan on giving her a lot of time together.
Thank you for being so honest about the frivolity we often experience around holidays 🙂 I have a 19 month old very busy boy who I am trying to refrain from “spoiling” despite the MANY well meaning gifts from family. I love that he is never without clothing and fun things to enjoy but it can be overwhelming and I find it difficult to refuse gifts politely. I truly believe that less is more when it comes to young children and I worry that overdoing it now will just increase the pressure to top it year after year. It’s so easy in our Pinterest driven culture to make sure our little babies have an idyllic childhood that frankly I don’ t think most of us ever experienced or were the worse for lack of it. It’s nice to find a quiet place with others who feel overwhelmed by the Peeps, Chocolate Bunnies and shiny New Toys this Easter. I hope you all have a peaceful weekend enjoying your time with family.
Rachel, I loved this post! I also hate the gift-giving creep in our culture, for every conceivable occasion. (My daughter asked me if she was getting a gift for Fifth Grade Graduation, which wasn’t even a thing when I was her age. I don’t think that milestone is really gift-worthy–it’s not like she was going to drop out in fourth grade or something.) A few years ago, we started the tradition at Easter with our two young kids of letting them pick out an “Easter plant” for our yard. They really enjoyed this and have been able to enjoy “their” Easter perennial for years. I like this tradition because we are not a religious family but do love nature and this is consistent with our values.
i have never and don’t think i will understand making easter baskets (and giving multiples of them!!) to children. or buying the candy in front of the child! and i will certainly never understand action figures and big plastic toys shoved into it.
we give a bit of candy, not much…this year a bit of taffy, some jelly beans, a bit of chocolates, and one small item that is religious or nature. baskets over the years have contained either a special stone, a lovely little plant, flower seeds, bunny figurines, occasionally a small book or stickers…just one of those things in the basket. this year a little cross to hang on the wall or use as an ornament if they would like. our day more about having a gathering with our extended family. i used to love getting new clothes as a child at easter and try and get something “new-to-us” about now…just a different shirt or a pretty sweater from the thrift store! 🙂
the kids blew eggs yesterday and we’ll dye those today for easter egg tree, then dye eggs tomorrow for hiding with family.
easter was always my favorite as a child but it’s so commercialized now it’s more difficult to hold steady on the simplicity!!
oops — ^^^^ related to my above comment :: i meant not understanding about making HUGE easter baskets, i LOVE the idea of easter baskets in general!
I never was a huge fan of giving lots on any holiday. I find that quality time beats buying baskets or the like any day. My kids will remember the time we spent but they may not remember what they received as a gift.
My girls are 5 and 2, and we keep Easter baskets very small. A few little toys (of decent quality, no cheap junk), one thing of bubbles each, a new pack of crayons, stickers and some candy. I also got them each a new Easter dress, but they are simple knit dresses with leggings that they will be able to wear them anytime after Easter. We spend Easter Sunday with my husband’s family and do an Easter egg hunt with all the grandkids at my in-law’s house. One of my sister-in-laws has a really nice camera, so I use this time to take a nice photo of the girls and a nice family shot of the four of us since we are all dressed up in pretty clothes!! No expensive photo shoots for us. This is a great post, and it’s nice to hear how others are keeping things simple. I hate the excess of giving that is so prevalent in our culture these days. It’s all too much, way too much.
My son is still too young to understand about holidays and gifts in general (he’s 20 months), but I’ve bought him a new Miffy book and a Miffy pillowcase – loosely tied to the general idea of Easter (we’re not religious).
And he doesn’t eat chocolate (yet)…
Someone above commented about feeling like they’re “shut out” of holidays because everyone else buys their kids a lot of gifts, and I feel that too! My family buys Ted fairly large gifts, which is another reason that I try not to myself. He spends most of his time wandering around the backyard playing with sticks anyway!
Your comment about your kids being the rich kids… I relate to that so strongly. My husband and I both grew up poor, with single moms for a while. We did each have a grandma who spoiled us, but “spoiling” us was more like buying us more of the basic necessities our moms couldn’t always afford. Now that my husband and I have kids, we have brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandparents and great-grandparents spoiling them, not to mention my husband and I are comfortable so we are able to afford to buy more for our kids than we had. However, we do try to be conscious of not overdoing it, so it’s getting to where we don’t buy them a whole lot since everyone else does. I read a quote that said, “For every thing you give your child, you are taking something away” and I feel that applies very much in the situation. It’s so much easier to give when you have the ability to do so, but we are trying to be very careful not to raise entitled children. What we are really aiming for, I think, is to raise children with the resourcefulness and gratitude that we were raised with based on our experiences growing up, without having to go through growing up poor. It’s a hard balance. Our kids are 2 and 4, so their Easter baskets consist of a Reese egg, a miniature Cadbury Creme Egg, a small egg of M&Ms, and a couple other little chocolates, plus a Pez dispenser and one of those Belly Washer juices with the superhero as the lid of the bottle or whatever it is. They get those only a few times a year so they are a big treat to them. They also get a joint gift of bubbles and sidewalk chalk, plus a bag of “Cotton Tails” (white cheese cheetos, basically). Writing it all out, even that seems like a lot, but compared to the pictures I’ve seen on FB the last few years of friends’ kids’ Easter baskets, they are quite modest. And, since we are religious and Easter is the most holy day in the Christian faith, we are trying to shift the focus of Easter to Jesus’s death and resurrection… each year I am trying to add in new things to bring it back to our faith and dial down the consumer/secular meaning. We don’t and never have done the Easter Bunny (nor Santa), and I wanted to do Resurrection Eggs this year but we just moved 2 weeks ago so that ended up not happening. Great post as always, Rachel!
Abby – you get it. It’s a strange feeling to know we could easily splash out and give our kids big gifts, the kind I would have loved, for Easter. But we won’t. What a great quote “For everything you give your child you are taking something away.” Thank you for sharing it here and how you’re celebrating Easter. Rachel
I love your comment. Our two oldest are 11 and 8 and we don’t buy them anything except necessity clothing. They get a small allowance and if they want a toy outside of their birthday or Christmas they have to use their allowance. They’ve learned to save and only buy the things they really want now. It’s also helped to lessen the amount of junky toys in the house!
We’ve been using the same small baskets for all of their childhood (larger than a softball, smaller than a soccer ball). The lining gets washed and filled on Easter with a few good pieces of chocolate (we’re working on developing their taste for darker varieties) and maybe a few small toys that might inspire their playtime outside. We like sidewalk chalks, little balsa wood airplane kits, bottled bubbles, pinwheels, jump ropes, smooth hopscotch stones, jacks, etc. If we can home-make it, it’s kind of a fun project for us adults. We don’t do them all at once, but these are some of the ideas we’ve used. Also, as they hit milestones, we might wait for the holiday to leave a ticket for a new sports item or a gift card. It doesn’t happen every year so they know not to expect it. Then we do a Spring Dinner. Everyone has to cook, mandatory. =D
We also get a new Easter outfit for each child (7 & 2 y.o.), although my mom usually makes them so it is kind of a special thing for us. Alas, even though we (the parents) don’t get them a lot of things they end up drowning in gifts from all the other relatives. I usually put most of the candy into a bag and then at Halloween we dump everything unopened from all the holidays on the floor and they get to pick 30 pieces each. The rest goes to the dentist where they cash it in for money. I feel like we get shut out of some holidays because we know that they are going to be getting so much so why buy more? It’s kind of a bummer.
This is us too (or me at least). They get so much from my DH’s family that myself and my parents feel left out of the holidays sometimes. But I just can’t buy them things I know they’ll never use or will be forgotten quickly in the ridiculous overload. And it’s not just Easter. When did Halloween/St Patrick’s day/Thanksgiving become a gift giving event?
I don’t think that the Easter basket/gift craze has reached Australia.
Our kids (13, 11, 8y) get one chocolate bunny each which is left on the end of their bed. We have one child who is lactose intolerant so he is getting a marshmallow bunny. Once they get up they will go on a hunt around the house for the small eggs that have been hidden. Some of those small eggs are usually ones I have made so my lactose intolerant son has something to eat. The kids all search together and then pool and swap so it is fair. This year I did splash out and buy a small packet of Easter-themed jelly lollies, in case I don’t get around to making the lactose free eggs. Everything is pretty well eaten by the end of Easter weekend.
Excellent points. Easter baskets are enormous here, and the Easter bunny brings so much that doesn’t fit in the basket. I’m cutting back to only gifts that fit inside the basket. So, my girls (2&4) are each getting a t-shirt, leggings, water bottle, coloring book, and some candy. There were other toys I planned to give them, but the items didn’t fit in the basket so I decided the girls don’t need more toys right now. I’ll save them in the gift closet for future occasions.
My children have all their needs met and most of their wants. Everything that is in the basket I would have purchased for them this month anyway; attributing it to the Easter bunny is more exciting for them.
Ahhh I am glad you brought this up. I have read/heard that families use Easter as a time to stock up on spring/summer items like warm weather clothing and beach gear. They use the Easter bunny to have it all arrive with some extra fun attached.
I’m keeping Easter for my two (a three-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl) the same I grew up with. My kids do get new Easter clothes but they become their go-to fancy summer clothes for church and weddings. This year we didn’t even buy my daughter’s dress thanks to a generous great-grandma and grandma. My son’s outfit is a combination of hand-me-downs, bought for him and consignment sale shopping.
In their Easter baskets they are each getting one present and a little candy. We will attend two Easter egg hunts where they will get all the candy they need.
I do agree that there is an expectation to do more or bigger baskets for Easter but I refuse. We don’t have the money and I’m not inclined to spend a lot anyway.
The tradition of a new formal spring outfit is really sweet. 🙂
I’m not sure we will attend an Easter egg hunt this year – maybe next year as the oldest has only a few more years of egg hunting in him. This year we will be busy making sandcastles and collecting shells!
We don’t have kids yet, but this year I’m hosting some girlfriends and I plan on doing an egg decorating craft before dinner, which will serve as our centrepiece. I try to keep things simple and focus on the friendships rather than wowing with fancy bites or shiny decorations.
That sounds fun!!
I love this article! My kids grew up with not having a lot of material things and they turned out great! My daughter and son in law like to do vacations instead of things also, my granddaughter just started dialysis, three days a week, 2 hours away each way. The thing my daughter misses the most is being able to go on vacations. Just wanted to say to never take your children’s health for granted. Happy Easter to you and your family! P.S. I love your blog!
I love this, Rachel. I’m so glad I get to follow along in your decision making so I can be prepared for the future! My daughter is too young for all of this right now but I’m dreading the many times there will be expectations of … stuff. I grew up privileged in many ways, but we still had a small – shared! gasp! – Easter basket for me and my sisters. Since I was the youngest, I got the leftovers – licorice jelly beans and white chocolate, haha! I still love those kinds of candy and chuckle at the possible reason why. I see so many parents lavishing (usually pretty cheap/breakable) gifts for every holiday. The waste and the accumulation of meaningless stuff makes me anxious. I love your idea of giving the gift of time. Hopefully your kids will enjoy it and appreciate it in the moment, and they for sure will appreciate it years later.
Meredith – all that fun cheap stuff makes me anxious too. Who’s going to have to try and find a new home for it when they lose interest or recycle it when it breaks? Me! At least the chocolate will definitely get used 🙂
Also: licorice jelly beans and white chocolate are my favorites. Hahaha!!!
I love this! We opt for trips (even though our kids are 18 months and 3 years) and it’s ALWAYS worth it.
This is the first year we will be in the US for Easter and we’re going to a friend’s parents’ house for an Easter egg dying and egg hunt. We bought our girls each a $1 “basket” from Target that they can use past Easter time and eventually throw out when it gets worn out without feeling like I have to keep it.
But yes, I do feel the increase in need for gifts- not just at Easter but all year long- even for no reason but the fact that someone feels like they haven’t seen you in awhile… it’s very nice and generous but can get overwhelming. It starts feeling like an obligation to give more ourselves.
I feel this way too. That giving stuff – even dollar store gifts, chocolates and other small items – is now a recurring expectation outside of the holidays. It feels like the more we random stuff we give each other the less it means. And now there is an expectation that kids will get stuff/presents at Easter. Now that we have a child in school we’re getting more of the someday got ___ and isn’t he/she lucky. I just keep saying, how nice for your friend and that’s not what we do in our family.