Post-Easter Sugar High… and Low

Classes may be out for spring break, but my second grader got schooled big time on Easter Sunday. Thanks to the extreme generosity of parents, grandparents, neighbors and the Easter Bunny, my daughter received not one, not two, not three, but six different chocolate rabbits. While her haul could have been the basis of many lessons, including self-control, charity, gratitude, and the dangers of excessive sugar consumption, she instead spent Easter learning the difference between “solid” and “hollow.” As in, just because you receive a two-foot tall chocolate bunny dressed in a top hat, blue bow tie, and a cummerbund … Continue reading

Easter Egg Envy

To quote The Beatles: “I long for yesterday.” Back then you didn’t have to have a degree in mixology and interior design to decorate Easter eggs. All you needed were a few bowls, some hard-boiled eggs, a handful of dissolving dye tablets and a wire dunker. Every year it was PAAS or bust. Parents of my generation know that PAAS is the Kleenex of Easter egg decorating kits. So, why mess with success? Today, moms and dads are bombarded with crazy egg decorating sets that require mad scientist skills to jazz-up hard-boiled ovum in time for Easter. Long gone are … Continue reading

Santa Bunny

The other day my 7-year-old asked me for the Easter Bunny’s email address so she could send him her gift wish list. Am I the only parent whose child thinks that the Easter Bunny is Santa’s spring replacement? What happened to kids getting dinky wicker baskets in a rainbow of pastel shades filled with hard-boiled eggs and a few Peeps? That’s what the Easter Bunny brought me as a child. It wasn’t until I was on the brink of teen-hood that the Bunny dug deep and gifted me with a few plastic eggs filled with quarters, plus a hollowed-out chocolate … Continue reading

Bunny Hunt

This is a child hot on the trail of the Easter Bunny. Actually, this is a child, who was instructed to turn her frown upside down, following a pouting-fest which was fueled by the fact that she was not allowed to stay up all night to capture the Easter Bunny. Funny how pictures work. For the past four years my now 7-year-old has desperately tried to snag the Easter Bunny. While other kids her age spend Holy Saturday night with visions of chocolate eggs dancing in their head, my child is designing elaborate traps made from blankets, empty boxes, masking … Continue reading

Prepping for Easter Pictures

Easter is a week away, which means that even the most reluctant shutterbugs will be reaching for their cameras. Holidays bring out the snap-happy in all of us. Even if you don’t take pictures on a daily or weekly basis, Easter is typically a time when we want to at least try to document special memories. The problem is succeeding. If you don’t take aim with your camera on a regular basis, you might be rusty, and your Easter photos will show it. To avoid snapping ugly holiday pictures, consider the following tips: Lighting: Try to take as many Easter … Continue reading

Freakazoid Parents Ruining Easter for Kids

I will never subject my sweet, innocent little lamb to another hare-raising event like it ever again. NEVER. EVER. EVER. AGAIN! I wrote those words on April 9, 2009, on this very blog. They were inspired by a bunch of freakazoid parents who decide to “help” their kids at a public Easter egg hunt. And by help I mean run over, elbow, flatten and otherwise traumatize innocent little children whom they did not give birth to, so they could get their grubby adult hands on plastic eggs and hand them to their offspring. So much for egg “hunting,” not to … Continue reading

Way to Ruin Easter

Nothing ruins Easter like: *The Easter Bunny delivering a basket full of carrots instead of chocolate *Rain cancelling your annual Easter egg hunt *Rover devouring all the Easter candy *A bunch of politically correct extremists forcing kids to call Easter eggs “Spring Spheres” Last year I learned that Jesus was crucified so that procrastinating parents could elbow you in the shoulder in order to get the last package of electric blue Peeps. This year the Easter lessons keep coming. Only this time P.C. zealots are the ones doling out the crazy, not rude shoppers. The same people who prefer that … Continue reading

More Ideas for Easter Layouts

My all-time favorite Easter-themed scrapbook layout features a timeline of my young daughter’s encounters with the Easter Bunny. Typically, these meet and greets take place at the mall, though I have a few photos of her in recent years trying to hit up the Bunny for chocolate at outdoor Easter egg hunts sponsored by the city or our local zoo. This year I will keep the tradition going by snapping her in the park with Peter Cottontail and adding the photos to the layout. There are a variety of ways you can make a page design like this work, though … Continue reading

When Your Kid Wants to Bring the Easter Bunny Home

There was a time when my young daughter wanted nothing to do with the Easter Bunny… at least the one at the mall. Time has apparently erased the bad feelings she had for the candy-toting rabbit because now all she talks about is how she wants the Easter Bunny to bring her a real rabbit to care for, instead of the chocolate kind. Greeeeeeeeeeeeat! How did bunnies and baby chicks become the poster animals for Easter anyway? What’s more, do parents really present live bunnies and chicks to their kids on Easter Sunday? I’m no farmer, and I highly doubt … Continue reading

Crazy Easter Parents

I just got back from Target where I learned that apparently Jesus was crucified so that procrastinating parents could elbow you in the shoulder in order to get the last package of electric blue Peeps. Elbows in shoulders, ribs, jaws; shopping carts running over feet and ramming hips; short tempers and long lines… Remember the reason for the season, people. Geez! Note to self: Bring shin guards the next time you head down the candy aisle on the day before Easter. The kicker (and I mean that literally) to my shopping rant is that I was done collecting goodies to … Continue reading