Easter traditions?

Wow! I love reading all these ideas. A few from our home:
1. If hiding real eggs outside, always know how many you start with...so one isn't left for the lawnmower!
2. My mom always included spring PJs and a paperback book in our baskets. I do the same for our boys.
3. Depending on where you live, it's fun to go on a hunt for "new life"...can use the camera to add to it. Babies, flowering bulbs, leafing trees, etc. Just waking the kids up to the significance of our holiday.
Now I'm gonna go find my old Betty Crocker and find that bunny cake recipe!
DK

Hi! I am so glad you asked this question. I am excited to find new ideas from everyone who posts. We always go to great grandma's house for an easter egg hunt the day before Easter. The Easter Bunny always hides the kids baskets. They love running around the house looking for their basket and then helping each other find theirs.

What great ideas! Especially the resurrection cookies!
Since I am 32 and my cousins are old enough to be my children, I put together an Easter Egg hunt a few years ago with plastic eggs and filled them with various candy-and stickers that I just wasn't going to use. At the end of the hunt, we counted the eggs (to make sure that our grandmother wouldn't have a melted platic Easter egg in her backyard in August (: ) and then they got the grand prize-a big stuffed animal for each of them.
I hope they will always remember that. I know their parents will-they were eating M&Ms at 9 o'clock at night!

hey girl.
for the last 3 years, since she could read on her own, i've done a 'Basket Treasure Hunt' for Allie...you know, she gets one clue...which leads her to the next...which leads her to the next. you get the idea. it always ends up with her finding her basket in some crazy place..i think last year i hid it in the oven. she looks forward to this every year. just remember to print out the clues, so nobody guesses your handwriting!
sadly, but also cool for her, Allie will be away for Easter this year. my sister-in-law asked if she could bring her to St. Louis with her two cousins to spend Spring Break there. i know she'll be having a ball, but we'll miss her none the same...so maybe somebody will see the scavenger hunt idea here, and do it for their own children...in honor of Miss Allie, since she won't be home.

Our kookiest Easter tradition is the annual egg toss.
We literally draw a line across the street with chalk, remove wedding rings and watches (we are serious contenders here!) and carefully choose an uncooked egg that looks like a winner.
Each pair of tossers generally consists of spouses, but those w/o a spouse team up together too. We begin the toss relatively close together - the person on one side of the line tosses it to the other. Then we all take a step back and toss it back. This continues on until there is only one couple left standing w/o egg on their feet, face or clothing. Believe me, after a while you aren't just lightly tossing this egg - you really have to put some muscle into it to get it to your partner.
We are so serious about this tradition that there is even a plaque that gets engraved w/ the winners' names each year. The kids used to be content w/ their egg hunt and the toss was adults-only, but as the kids grow they are getting in on the action and teaming up after the adults are finished. We always end the tradition of our annual egg toss by hosing off the street!!

We dye eggs- the messier the better.
The easter bunny always leaves a piece of his cotton tail near the easter basket.
Sometimes there are even "bunny prints" in some flour on the floor.
My parents always had us make a "nest" out of clothes outside our bedroom door and the easter bunny would put our baskets inside.
Deviled eggs- a must.
An easter egg hunt- indoors if the weather isn't dry.
Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny leaves us a TREASURE HUNT to follow in the backyard. He uses plastic eggs and fills each one with a clue to find the next one along with some jelly beans (for energy!)... the last egg leads the kids to their baskets, which are also hidden! They LOVED it last year at 3 and 5 yrs. old, so we'll do it again!

Oh, yeah, and my mom's advice...don't hide the basket in your oven if you have a pilot light - for gas. One year the bunny melted! (Just as yummy, though!)

When I was little I would be just as excited for the EB that I was for Santa. I have a very creative mom!
The EB would "layer" my basket. The bottom was usually typical candy. Then grass.
The next layer would be toys. Small ones such as Silly Putty. etc.
Then grass.
The next layer would be candy.
Then grass.
Then the top would have a huge chocolate EB. Then I would get a big toy that I had been wanting or I would have a Easter Poem that I had to do to "find" my big thing.
When I went away to college the "grass" became dollar bills on the bottom and layerd up 5's then 10's then 20's then the top was a 100.00 bill with quarters to do the wash. (The money was for my phone bill b/c my boyfriend lived 6 hours away LOL LOL
I do this for my 2 daughters but not as great as mine. I have two daughters and my mom only had me to buy for.

For the past 30+ years we have travelled to visit our best friends in Arizona at Easter for the annual egg cracking contest! Did you know that if you bump eggs small end to small end - only one cracks. We have an Easter brunch with about 50 people, but the egg cracking is the highlight of the day and winner has bragging rights for the year. We see the tradition now being carried on as our kids leave and move away and they are starting their own Easter egg-cracking contests!

When we were kids we used grated beets in boiled water for red eggs, brown onion peels for brown colored eggs... Spanish onions for more color in the eggs..anything my father could think up. tea bags and coffee grounds as well..lol
My children have an egg hunt, real and plastici at our home, inside and out. The Easter Bunny leaves baking soda tracks.. helps the younger ones follow a crazy path then find their Easter Goodies that have been hidden :}
I think anything you do with your children will be fondly recalled and a good time.. the point is to spend time with your kids, happy, stress free, pressure free time!
That's all they really want is TIME, someone to listen ( I have four) so sometimes I want earplugs but I zip my lip and open my ears :}
lol

We use cornstarch to make "bunny-prints" on the carpet throughout the house to show EB's path as he hid the eggs. A friend uses that carpet powder that makes the carpet smell fresh.

thanks for asking the question, Ali. I really enjoy reading what different things everyone does.
Most of my kids are all grown up but we used to hide Easter baskets and they had to search for them before church. Toys and chocolate...
Now we have just a 2 1/2 year old at home. We'll color Easter eggs and go to our Sunrise service at church and then have breakfast. This year we'll pass on the basket again...maybe next year.
Have a blessed holiday!

Since none of us like hard-boiled eggs, we buy wooden eggs and each family member paints one per year. We pull the old eggs out on Palm Sunday and use them to decorate the house, and then paint this year's eggs after dinner. It's fun to see how the kids' eggs have progressed over the years, to see their painting abilities grow and to see what kinds of themes they choose. I always paint flowers or some kind of nature scene; my husband always paints a geometric pattern. The girls like to see if they can identify whose egg is whose, and my son always makes his relative to what he's studying or interested in at the time (this year it's a skateboard!).
Easter morning we hunt the plastic eggs. No big deal if we don't find a few and the lawnmower catches it instead!

We had a beagle growing up so the Easter bunny always hid our baskets where the dog couldn't get them. The best part was looking for the baskets and finding the notes with clues left all over the house. I'd love to carry on this tradition when my kids are old enough to read - right now the EB leaves their baskets on the dining room table -- far out of reach of our dogs!

for us Easter is a bunny/chocolate holiday - not a religious holiday.
As a kid it was a religious holiday for my family and my grandma would always buy us kites and we'd try our best to fly them.
We went to the Woodland Park zoo a couple of years ago on Easter as a fun family outing. We found the cougars were having an Easter Egg hunt too...the zoo keeper kid dead chicks and the cougars 'found' their treats...ewwww :(

i want some too! I have a recent obsession with collecting seasonal decor.. i think i am getting baby fever again and it makes me feel sort of motherly? i dont know..... love hearing what people do for certain holidays!!! :)

for us Easter is a bunny/chocolate holiday - not a religious holiday.
As a kid it was a religious holiday for my family and my grandma would always buy us kites and we'd try our best to fly them.
We went to the Woodland Park zoo a couple of years ago on Easter as a fun family outing. We found the cougars were having an Easter Egg hunt too...the zoo keeper HID dead chicks and the cougars 'found' their treats...ewwww :(

My children are older now, 19 and 21, but just yesterday they asked me if I would resurrect(sp?) my tradition of sending them on a scavenger hunt for a special Easter treat. Easter morning they would find the first clue and then scamper around the house and yard to be lead to their little gift. When they were young it was usually a book but as they got older I also used CD's. Since we are not into the whole candy thing this was a fun alternative.

Hi Ali. We always have a traditional ham dinner. I have a 17 year old nephew who is autistic and lives at Kids Peace in PA (wonderful place) is visiting and has to return early evening, so we'll have a brunch instead of a traditional dinner. No kids at home but still dye eggs and make a special Easter basket for my husband.
My husband still buys me a corsage to wear to Church which I just love. I love the simple pleasures of life.
We also go to Church at 8:30 a.m.
Happy Easter to you and your family.
Regina

My son's first easter we set him up on cushion wearing just a nappy and let him go for it with a large egg. We had left it in the sun for a minute or so, becasue we didnt want sharp shards of chocolate. It was a wonderful mess. We had a family gathering the next year, and last year a group of friends all met in the park.. 12 kids between us - and had a BBQ brunch and an egg hunt.. so fun!
This year we are looking for some lovely traditions so I will be back to read with great interest. We always had a basket as kids.. but i am doing a basket from me.. and something special and magical from the bunny... just waiting to be inspired!

When we were little we'd wake up to a thank you note from the EB which was left next to an empty water glass and partially nibbled carrot which had been full and uneaten when we left them out the night before. Also, our mom would sew matching dresses for me and my older sister, then we'd sit on the big rocks in the flower bed in the middle of the front yard where all the Daffodils would be blooming and have our pictures taken. Somewhere in there we went to church and then to lunch/dinner at one of the grandparents houses.

When I was a kid, the Easter Bunny (my Dad I later found out!) left wet and sometimes muddy footprints coming up the deck to the front porch...big, hoppity, smudgy prints, leading to the baskets. Now that I've got my own children, the Easter Bunny does it at my house! My boys love it. Also, my husband and I hide the eggs outside late at night, when the boys are asleep. When they wake up, they go out to look for eggs, see the baskets and the bunny prints and voila! - magic!

Great question! We boil crawfish every Easter (we are in Cajun country; what can I say?). I also give each of my kids a book. I actually give them each a book for every major holiday. I want them to grow up knowing how awesome reading is... how important it is to always be learning something new!
Now I'm going to go back and get some ideas for new traditions we can start. Awesome! I LOVE family traditions.

We go to Sunrise Service at the lake{6:30am}to celebrate The Resurrection out in the crisp morning air, for all to see.Even the kids don't mind getting up early when they have donuts, hot chocolate, and coffee waiting for you! Then we head back home to prepare brunch for about 20 members of my husband's family.In the past we've always had lots of kids to hunt plastic eggs out in the garden...but sadly this year it will only be my 14 yr.old and 10 yr. old! Why do kids have to grow up so fast???
Congrats again on the badge, it's so cool to be part of something so awesome!