Friday, April 6, 2012

Candy Heaven



When we were little, we used to wake up at some obscene hour on Easter morning to scour the house for our hidden baskets.  Upon finding them, (and about 50 thousand hidden eggs), the candy eating began.  And went on and on and on. My parents were normally pretty strict about how much sugar we ate. (We had the world's most boring bagged lunches.  Seriously. I mean, what second grader is excited about baby carrots and a peanut butter sandwich on brown bread? Boo.) But apparently the Easter Bunny did not have such particular guidelines.  He filled, and I mean filled our baskets with a huge chocolate bunny surrounded by ridiculously fun amounts of every single kind of candy imaginable.  Hooray for Candy Heaven!! 

This is a random picture of some lucky kid's
basket. Peeps AND Cadbury minis?! Wow.
Some major candy hoarding would have
been happening FOR SURE.
We knew it was only a matter of time before my mother announced that whatever wasn't eaten in two days was getting thrown in the trash.  THROWING CANDY IN THE TRASH?!!?!?!?  ISN'T THAT, LIKE, AGAINST THE LAW OR SOMETHING?!?! And so we embarked on a crazy sugar high,  and then taught ourselves some pretty intense candy hoarding tricks. (Well, my sister and I hoarded.  My brother just ate all of his, and then begged us for ours when he realized a week later what we had done). Hey man, it was survival of the fittest.

Well, I never really understood the whole "eat it all NOW" reasoning until I became a mother myself a couple of years ago, and became even crazier stricter about sugar consumption than my own mom was.  My poor lucky children won't even have the chance to candy hoard this Easter because there will hardly be any candy in their baskets.  Instead, the Easter Bunny found some non-candy (yet still fun) alternatives. 

Here is a list of things that are either being included in this year's basket, or were in last year's. Feel free to do this with your kids.  Trust me, everyone will be happy at the end of the day.

Plastic eggs filled with bunny-shaped cheese crackers or yogurt covered raisins. (Ok, ok, a few will have M&Ms or jelly beans too... but not too many!!)

Sunglasses

Stuff from the $1 bins at Target. This year I found some pretty cool Spiderman gliding airplanes. Fun!

Sidewalk chalk, shaped like eggs of course

Welch's Fruit Snacks

 
Flip-flops (We are getting ridiculously excited for summer around here)

Small Lego kits

Coloring books

Bubbles

Books

Granola bars (which they call "candy bars". I wonder when they'll figure out the truth...)

100% fruit "leather" (you know, those fruit strips that are actually made from fruit.)

There are probably more things that belong on this list, but I'm drawing a blank right now.  Tell me: what do you put in your kids' Easter baskets? What was in your basket when you were growing up? 

Have a healthy day (and a Happy Easter, or a Happy Passover, or just a great weekend),

J

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