When did Easter turn into a gift giving holiday?

[2kids2luv]

We keep it pretty low key too, even with Christmas stockings. The most we ever spent was on DS's first easter. He got a wagon and fish crackers. The best Easter was when we had a get away planned and kids got a snorkle, goggles, water rockets and floaties. Kids always get a book, some candy and DS gets small lego set or tech deck and DD gets inexpensive jewlery or make-up.

 

[QVCshopper]

I also want to add that I don't do fancy Easter outfits either. I'd rather spend that money on clothing they will wear a lot. But, I usually pick up a dress or vest at a consignment sale. My DD will wear a like new Heartstrings dress that I got for $2.50 and DS will wear a vest that I bought for a quarter. The baby will wear one of DD's old dresses and they'll all look cute for super cheap.

 

[nchulka]

We usually hit several local egg hunts the day before so by Easter morning the kids are swimming in candy. We don't do big gifts. I hide eggs with a few small candies and change, quarters, dimes etc., a total of about 10 bucks divided between several eggs. I also hide a bunny for each of them. Then they build their own basket. The baskets start empty and they fill them with the eggs they find. The only rule is they can only get one bunny each.

 

[Colleen27]

I think it comes in part from parents trying to rein in the amount of candy the kids get. We don't give much Easter candy any more - my kids each get a DVD in their basket, along with some cheap "spring" toys like sidewalk chalk or bubbles or duct tape (my son loves building/decorating with the stuff). The only candy they'll get is a package of Peeps and a bag of cheap jelly beans divided among the three of them.

 

[dhardawa]

When we were kids, we might get a small gift for Easter, but usually, it was just our baskets with candy. For my kids, I do about the same. This year, the neighbor just put up a basketball goal and all the kids in the cul de sac play every day. Both my kids want basketballs, so they are getting those. I paid $9 for my son's and $16 for my daughter's (she specifically wanted a green glow in the dark ball). I'm also putting a Leappad game in my son's basket that I've had stashed in the closet for months. I think I paid around $13 for it and my daughter is getting some new earbuds for her phone since the rubber ends of her current ones have gotten lost. I paid $5 for these. So, I'm doing about $21 - $22 worth of gifts for each kid. I'll also do plastic eggs with jelly beans/other small candy and a small chocolate bunny. That's it.

 

[StephMK]

Nope, we don't do big items either. They each get a chocolate bunny & a few jelly beans. Then a couple useful stocking stuffer type gifts and that's it. I bought the little gifts - book lights, post it notes type stuff - at Penney's for 70%+ during the post-Xmas clearance.

I bought really cute metal baskets several years ago at Target & they are great. They stack for storage and aren't huge so they are easy to fill. I have one rubbermaid tote for Easter and everything fits inside it.

 

[MomToOne]

I enjoy loading up DD11s basket with presents. The only times during the year I buy her stuff she wants, instead of stuff she needs, is Christmas and Easter (Even for her birthday I usually give her cash and we go on a major shopping spree, but she's expected to buy mostly the clothes she needs for summer so it's not really a present after all - she just hasn't figured that out )

Like some PPs, I usually buy most of the stuff for her basket at after Christmas sales so it's not a huge expense. I even get lots of the candy for the eggs I do at the after-Christmas sales.

To each family their own on these sort of things!

 

[tasha99]

I used to get the kids 2 small gifts and a big one each. Under the Easter tree (we had a huge one), they would find three eggs with their names on them. Inside their eggs, there was a written clue that led to the next egg and the first gift. The second egg had the next clue to the next gift and egg, etc. I put a lot of planning into our "Easter egg hunt" and had a great time with it.

 

[ScottOKW2K]

So many have the gimme gimme mentality. All I ever got was a choc bunny (mandatory maybe jelly beans or some other candy and maybe a stuffed animal when I was really little.
No need to go broke for Every Holiday.
Now if someone on the boards want to buy ME a basket.....I'll settle for having my trip pd off and nothing else

I'll give you half of what you want - here's the nothing else part !

 

[Donnask8pro]

I haven't read the whole thread but JMO, I try to keep my kids away from candy so I fill with other things. Always something I have gotten on sale though.

 

[NYEmomma]

Easter has always been more gift than candy/trinkets at our house... that's how we celebrated when I grew up so that's how I celebrate with my daughter now.

All of the presents going in DD' easter basket this year, aside from candy, was from the stash I accumulated for her birthday & Christmas. And all of that stuff was purchased on sale/clearance. I've got a swimsuit, hat & cover-up that I got from the Disney Store clearance; movies that we got when we enrolled in DMC that I've been holding onto and gifting slowly; toys from Target's clearance sale, etc.

I just need to pick up some jelly beans & chocolate, and a couple small easter-related things like stickers & a coloring book and she's all set.

 

[Lisa71]

We just do the chocolate bunny, a few small trinkets and jelly beans. Our kids love the Easter Egg hunt and dying eggs, etc. I love the holiday as a religious one and the traditions. We don't do big gifts and I don't see the point if it. We do small meaningful things.

 

[DisneyLoverUSA]

When the kids were younger I would get them stuffed animals and those little Easter themed toys you can get in the Walmart Easter isle for the kid's baskets but now that they are tweens I usually just give them an assortment of Easter candy and little novelty candies. They rarely ever get candy in my house so getting a basket full of it at Easter is exciting for them. But they usually takes a month or two eating through it. I usually spend between $20 and $30 on each basket.

They always get one of those pre-made crappy baskets from their dad so I try to make a good one for them.
But no TOYS or video games, etc. in our baskets. I don't think of Easter as a gift giving holiday either.

 

[angierae]

Growing up, Easter is when you got your "outside" presents - a kite, some sidewalk chalk, new sand toys, I got a bike once (I never understood giving kids bikes for Christmas - being from Michigan, if you give your kid a bike at Christmas they MIGHT be able to use it in three months.)

DD has always gotten something small - a DVD, outside stuff like what I got as a kid. This year we'll be in WDW for Easter, so she's not getting anything, but she's old enough to understand why.

 

[LMN]

We used to do bigger Easter baskets in our family, but since I am no longer working full time, our budget for gifts overall has gone down considerably. I haven't eliminated the baskets completely, but this year, I'll probably do a chocolate easter bunny for each one of my 3 kids and some jelly beans. Will probably do summer shoes (sandals or flip flops) and maybe a tshirt or shorts. Pool toys (if I can find them on sale) were big hits last year. All of this stuff is stuff I would buy anyway (except for the candy). When I was working full time I would add DVD movies, video games, books, etc.

 

[crusoe2]

I started adding more to Easter baskets after DD came along. Her birthday is just a few days before Christmas. So I hate to limit her to gifts only at Christmas and b'day - makes for an awfully long year and then she gets too much at one time. Many of the things I've put in her Easter basket were things I probably would have gotten her anyway. It's just more fun when it's a surprise. Plus she can look forward to getting gifts sometime other than just December.

 

[Soarin_04]

Ditto what others said -- some candy (not much), an Easter Egg hunt with change and maybe a few bills inside, etc.

Last year was the exception -- kinda. My sons are now 12 and 14 and were in dire need of new backpacks. LL Bean just happened to have a sale the month before -- we filled the backpacks with candy and some small stuff and gave them a bunch of really tricky clues to figure out where theirs were hidden. It was a riot -- we had them running all over the place, crawling into the crawl space, looking in the garden shed...all to discover their haul was under their beds the entire time.

This year, the oldest asked if we could do that again -- the hunt, that is. So for them, it's more the fun than the actual candy / gift.

Works for me!

That said, my poor mother is probably doing backflips in her grave; Easter and Easter candy were her favorites. She and my aunts grew up in the Depression and had nothing on Easter. As a result, when they became adults, they overindulged. I'm not joking when I tell you that in the 1970's my mom and aunts would each spend about $50 on chocolate at Easter (that'd be what? About $150 by today's standards?). Bleech...just the thought of that makes my stomach roll.

Gee..wonder why they all developed Type II diabetes?

 

[luckyfin]

I was just thinking the same thing. I come from a family where the easter baskets have always been a little more than candy- pj's, bubbles, books, etc. But we were at the mall this morning and there was no line for the Easter Bunny so we stopped to visit. The woman running the production told my DD to tell the Easter Bunny what she wanted for Easter! Good thing she didn't really pick up on that. When did the Easter Bunny turn into Santa Claus??? I would imagine that might be setting up some parents for some disappointed kids!

 

[delmar411]

we normally just do baskets with candy and maybe some small trinkets. I also fill A LOT of eggs with candy and put them all over the house.

This year I decided to forgo the lots of candy and just do a gift instead. I just bought the boys the skylander(?) game on sale and then had no occasion to give it to them so Easter works for that. We got ODD $50 in Itunes using a staples code and rewards I got for buying batteries. So hers only cost about $25 for $50 in Itunes. I forget what we picked up for YDD but it was around the same price range.

I also only got gummy bears for the eggs so I'll fill as many eggs as the gummies will fill up and that's it. I got some minor easter candy at TRU using rewards and coupons plus I had a GC that had some random leftover money on it that covered what was left over.

 

[MrsPete]

I tend to do bigger baskets that look pricey....with a catch . . . Total spent was under $30.

I'll add about $5 in candy, and I'm done.
Retail would have been approximately $130ish before candy.

This works great when your kids are young, but you can probably anticipate the future problem: You're setting up an expectation in the kids' minds, and it won't be too long before you really can't make $30 look like a big deal.