Our Easter Treats
Children, Family

Our Easter Treats

Smelly Socks and Garden Peas

I’ve got to admit that we’re all about the modern day festival of chocolate and treats at Easter. We aren’t religious, occasionally forget pancake day (don’t even call it shrove Tuesday) and we don’t give things up for lent.

That said, we also try not to focus too much on the edible treats.

Easter in Our House

The boys do get an Easter egg, after I’ve ignored the shelves full of chocolate for weeks on end and then picked up something on offer the week before. But they only get one small one each.

The last two years I’ve been talked into an Easter egg hunt in the garden. The first year, we had visitors and we wanted to create some fun and excitement for their kids too. Last year, it was all about trying to get some positivity in those first few weeks of lockdown. Now I can’t wriggle out of it!

The boys’ Scottish gran always sends some sweet treats and some clothes to set them up for the warmer months. This year, a Marks and Spencer order arrived a couple of weeks ago (goodness only knows why she’s chosen camouflage prints). My parents generally get them something useful, this year they’ve sent some money for an egg and anything else they want. I shall see what books they’d like to buy.

As well as their eggs though, they’ve each got a National Geographic Kids magazine (I planned ahead so they each have a different edition). Small boy has a Where’s Wally game and large boy a Yoda puzzle book. (Aldi aisle of mystery for the win!)

Our Easter Thoughts

Since we aren’t celebrating Easter for any reason other than its just the societal norm and because I don’t really want to lavish the boys with chocolate galore, I’m quite pleased that we’ve spent less than £25 total on them both. I’m always a bit bewildered by photos of their school friends with 5 or 6 eggs plus chocolate bars – all that must last them for weeks right?!

Despite our agnostic stance, the boys both know where the Easter traditions come from. Large boy famously told his teacher, aged 6, that he didn’t believe Jesus really died, he was just hiding in the cave apparently. I love that he challenged accepted thinking, created his own version and spoke up about it.

Himself and I just step through the event in the same way as Valentine’s or pancake day or Halloween. We aren’t fussed about it but its nice for the kids to have a treat and for us to take some time off work. The boys don’t seem that interested either, they both declined the opportunity to do crafts for a competition at school and the days of Easter bonnet making are long gone.

The Missing Piece

Until last year we would always be away for a week at Easter. We might have visited our parents or booked a holiday cottage: Llandudno, Harrogate, Sheringham. Just a week away, self catering, meeting up with friends and family. After we lost boy3 we had a week in Majorca, not a luxurious attempted escape from grief but a painful reminder that we’d planned it to scrape inside the 32 week rule but that no longer applied. Last year we should have been in Whitby. This year, its another staycation and we’re getting itchy feet.

How about you?

Do you celebrate Easter differently from us? What makes it special for you?

I’d love to hear from you.

By the way, I was totally absorbed by Vinn en Route’s description of Easter in Cyprus and Charley at Undaunted Adventure’s list of 7 interesting traditions.

Love from Smell xx

Published by Smelly Socks and Garden Peas

Rants, rambles, loss, gin, guests, recipes, funny kids, occasional poems, and a bit of running.

34 thoughts on “Our Easter Treats”

  4. Great Easter treats! National Geographic is amazing! I will have to remember that for next year. We celebrate Easter pretty much the same way as you do. We have an Easter egg hunt for the kids, trying to keep the chocolate and candy to a minimum, and have a nice family dinner. For us it’s the time with family that makes every holiday special.

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  5. I have seen some incredible Easter offerings on social media this year. It’s so easy to spoil little ones especially with everything going on in the world. It’s just me and my fiance right now, we got each other an egg each and that was plenty.

    I would love to do a staycation over Easter in the future

    Rosie

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  7. My little girl got a little more than we expected this year. We got her a couple of eggs, plus a dress-up Jasmin dress she’s wanted for a while. She then received a number of chocolate eggs in the post we were not anticipating. We’ll likely regift one or two of her eggs to a friend’s kids.

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  8. Hi happy easter! Thanks for the mention 😉 though me being a roman catholic i also celebrated our easter and yes another one for the easter orthodox! This sunday i baked a chocolate cake and top it with maltese choc egg and bunny. For the orthodox easter i will be coloring eggs since easter egg crack is a tradition. Obviously i celebrate easter a lot 💕

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  9. Easter has been a little strange this year. We were supposed to go to the coast but the weather predictions and Covid snap lockdown scared us off. We stayed here and the house has been silent as it is just my husband and I. I with my writing , he with the paperwork he was catching up on. Both of our sons away and busy with lives of their own. It felt odd but gradually I became used to it and now it is Monday and the relaxation has settled in deeply.

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  10. Happy Easter! 🐣 I suppose our family used to do the traditional egg hunts, baskets, then dinner with family. Husband and myself would attend church but don’t like the forced religion so the boys stayed home unless they chose to go. This year we went for a walk and stayed close to home.

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  12. The kids loved searching for chocolate eggs as kids. My parents hid them. At one point there was a map because it never failed that one kid would have one less egg than the other and we never did find it. 😀

    Later they got a combination of chocolate and plastic eggs filled with coins. That was during the early tween age.

    Now at 13 and 16 we still all get treats from Grandma but it’s more about meals. Brunch, it dinner. This year it was dinner.

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  13. Happy Easter to you!

    Our Easter gifts are mainly about the chocolate. When my kids were small, I remember other kids getting bikes and really big gifts. We’ve never done that. But the Easter Egg hunt… I have to warn you, once you start these traditions, you’ll be doing them forever. My daughter, who turns 18 in a few weeks, asked me the other day if we were going to do an Easter Egg hunt today. 😂

    I am very happy this weekend to have been able to go to church and sing with a very small socially-distanced, mask-wearing choir. It had been over a year since I was there. I missed it a lot.

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  15. Happy Easter! I love that they get different things and not only chocolate, we are not religious either so since we were kids it was just an excuse to visit relatives in Rome for the week and making great memories. Hope you have a great weekend x

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  17. I love the idea of getting the kids other items than chocolate! As a kid we’d never get Easter eggs -My parents always used to give us the money they would have spent and let us buy something we’d actually like and use! Hopefully next Easter you’re able to get away for a mini break again! Thanks so much for sharing, and for mentioning my Easter post too! X

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  18. My house used to look like a supermarket shelf with the amount of eggs the kids got from family, godparents and friends. We don’t have a single one this year 😂 The kids get money instead and they’re more than happy with that. I do miss doing the hunts though. We’d go to my mam’s garden which was bigger with loads of nooks and crannies. Plus, I didn’t have to feed them for days because they just ate chocolate 😂😜

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  19. A great post thankyou. We are hoping to minimise the chocolate provided for out LO over the Easter period. He is the only little one in the family at the moment so he is being spoilt rather! But we will usually get him a little egg and a book/magazine to enjoy at the weekend.
    I’m sorry to hear you lost your boy3 my thoughts are with him and you.

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