With Easter approaching, my husband and I have begun the
traditional search for fun and tasty things to fill each other’s
Easter baskets. This Easter is particularly special, as it is
the last one we will be celebrating by ourselves - we are
expecting our first child the week after Easter (or maybe
we’ll have the best Easter surprise ever, if she decides
to show up early). However, my dear husband and I are
now debating a very serious question: does the Easter bunny
fill baskets for parents? He claims that parents should not
get Easter baskets. I claim that, at the very least, parents
should get a basket to share. Help us decide on this very
important new tradition!!
When I was a child, I once gave my mother an Easter basket - she was thrilled.
My fiancee and I fill each others Christmas stockings with little liquor bottles - perhaps an idea for your Easter basket if you are drinkers.
In my family, the parents never received Easter baskets. However, I don’t think that there’s necessarily anything WRONG with adults getting Easter baskets or Easter presents. If you and your husband enjoy making Easter baskets for each other, then I don’t see why you can’t make this a family tradition when your child is old enough to partake in it.
You might want to think about having “permanent” Easter baskets…that is, not buying new baskets every year, but buying some quality baskets on sale, and keeping those around to set out to be refilled each year, like Christmas stockings. Of course, I am the person who uses and reuses gift bags and boxes, so take my hints for what they’re worth.
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[sup]Isn’t that up to the Easter Bunny?[/sup][/indent]
Just think about it and you’ll realize that is a serious answer. 
Fight some ignorance for me here. What is this Easter Basket custom? Never heard of it before.
Back in the UK people may give chocolate eggs to their kids. Do you guys give each other whole baskets of stuff?!
Is it a modern marketing driven thing - like Fathers Day - or been around a while?
The misstee family gets a giant Easter Basket with goodies for everyone in it.
The kids who are young enough to still hunt eggs use the cheapy 99 cent buckets to put eggs in. The kids who are too old to hunt eggs generally help take pictures or hide eggs. With five kids it would get to be very expensive to buy and fill baskets for all. Plus with one basket, there is no fighting with the kids about taking their candy upstiars into their rooms. All the candy gets left in a cental location. Each kid gets something special in the basket, or left by the basket. Maybe a cd, or make-up, the younger girls like jewelry or baby dolls, the kids have gotten things like out door toys in the past.
We ( the parents ) always have something in the basket, too.
I think you should continue to make each other baskets as long as you guys want to. It’s what makes a holiday special.
An Easter basket is pretty much what it says – a basket full of candy and chocolate and all sorts of goodies, jelly beans being one traditional item from what I can tell. I don’t know how much if is a marketing thing, but we had a family tradition of hiding the basket. So my brother and I would scour the house looking for our chocolate fix. g
I see nothing wrong with parents getting them as well, though I haven’t heard of that. I could think of all sorts of kid-inappropriate stuff that I’d love to find in a basket.
My husband and I never gave each other Easter baskets when our kids were growing up – mostly because buying and filling a basket apiece for the kids was all we could afford. Same with my parents and with Kevin’s parents. But I don’t see anything wrong with it if you can afford it and want to. Why not?
Since our kids have gotten older, I no longer buy them baskets, BTW. I buy a bunch of Easter candy – the "good"stuff we couldn’t used to afford – and fill a big bowl on the kitchen table for all to share.
I was born in the '50s and we had Easter baskets growing up, so if it is market-driven, it’s been going a while. My parents always had one Easter basket that they shared, and each child got an individual one. My husband and I do it that way now. Also, we had special baskets that were kept and re-used year to year, and I do it that way with my kids.
We had permanent easter baskets as kids, only replaced when they wore out. They were filled with decorated eggs, chocolate and candy. And the Easter Bunny hid the baskets, not the eggs.
Dad got an easter basket, but it wasn’t hidden. And Mom got a box of Whitman’s Sampler chocolate.
One year, we had baskets that looked like bunnies, but were made out of gallon-size milk jugs.
We have permanent Easter baskets.
I typically make one up for my husband, too. He doesn’t often make one for me. It feels a little weird to me to make my own.
Hence, the kids saying: “Gosh, Mom, I guess the Easter Bunny doesn’t like you!” :rolleyes: Nonetheless, there’s enough left-over candy that I can have some, so it works out!
Mrs. Furthur
Mr. sekhmet and I do have permanent Easter baskets that we refill every year. They are mostly filled with chocolate, but we usually include a nice, inexpensive gift like a handheld video game and sometimes a gag gift too. It had never occurred to me that we might not fill a basket for each other once we have a kid, even though my parents always just had one basket they shared, which was filled by my mom. Mr. sekhmet’s parents never got a basket, so he thinks I’m just looking for a way to get undeserved chocolate. He’s mostly right 
but I also just love all of the holiday traditions. We have even been hiding plastic Easter eggs for each other since we’ve been together (7 years). The Easter egg hunt is one thing I’ll happily turn over to just the kids …
I don’t see why parents shouldn’t get Easter baskets. Everybody likes jelly beans and chocolate! My brother and his girlfriend are spending Easter weekend with us, and I’m really looking forward to buying chocolate bunnies and colored eggs for all of us.
And what’s wrong with undeserved choclate, I’d like to know?
I’d be very sad if my bunny didn’t bring me a basket every year! Mine usually has a new girlie CD and peanut butter based candies.
I like the idea of the same basket every year. Like the stockings and so forth-then you can buy quality instead of the plastic ones out there.
I wonder though, how parents explain to kids the pre-made baskets in the stores. Do the kidlets think the bunny shops at Rite Aid?
Honestly, this is the first I’ve ever heard of parents not getting Easter baskets (in families that do the basket thing to begin with). What did y’all do to make the Easter Bunny hate you so much?
My parents have always gotten a nice large basket to share. Didn’t stop my dad stealing licorice jellybeans from us kids, though…
I had a “permanent” Easter basket as a child. What is this “worn out” thing of which you speak? How does a basket you use once a year wear out?
My parents didn’t get baskets, but hey, if you enjoy it, go ahead.
They don’t do it in other countries? So that means you don’t have Easter grass in other places?! Easter grass is the best part, nay, almost the point of having a basket. It’s these really thin longish strips of plastic “grass”, formerly green but now in all sorts of shocking colors it seems. And you find it everywhere for years to come. There has never been a child of Easter age in this house and every so often I find Easter grass stuck to my feet, don’t ask how.
There is nothing wrong with chocolate, assuming it is of good quality. There is PLENTY wrong with a lot of the crap that’s put out specifically for Easter baskets. Bad, bad, bad. Yuck. It is a sin.
notquitekarpov, Easter baskets are a Christian custom with pagan undertones here in the US. Most Christian children (and at least a few atheist ones, as well) will wake up on Easter Sunday morning and find that the Easter Bunny (sort of like Santa Claus, only for Easter) has left a basket of seasonal goodies. The basket varies in size and contents. Easter grass is available in a wide range of pastel and neon pastel colors, and is usually put in the basket to make it look like there’s more in it. Then various goodies are put in the basket. In the US, many candy manufacturers come out with Easter editions of their regular candies. For example, Milky Ways will come in snack sized bars and have pastel colored wrappers instead of the regular wrappers. There’s also the marshmallow peeps, which are colored marshmallows shaped into Easter themes. At first, peeps only came in yellow chicks. Now, peeps come in many different colors and shapes. Purists insist that only the yellow chicks are true peeps, though. Many people enjoy letting the peeps get stale, and then eating them. Some microwave them first. Other traditional Easter candy includes malted milk balls with speckled candy shells, which are marketed as candy eggs, and the various jelly beans. Many people put small gifts, such as a doll or a coloring book, in the baskets. It depends on the family’s budget and tradition.
Some people also give animals as Easter gifts, such as chicks, bunnies, or ducklings. This is unfortunate, to put it mildly, as these animals are usually not taken care of properly, and live short, miserable lives. Years ago, I would see chicks dyed in pastel colors to be sold as Easter gifts. I don’t believe that they are dyed these days, but people still buy these chicks as Easter gifts, not realizing just what a pain chickens can be.
As far as the baskets in stores went, according to my Mom, they were for the new kids who the bunny didn’t know. Once we noticed that they weren’t full of baby toys, but in fact kid toys, her story changed. Those were for the kids who were out of town on Easter: their parents bought those for the actual Sunday, but their “real” bunny baskets would be waiting at home for them. Mom really tried to keep the fantasy alive for us, and was pretty clever about it IMO. Also, we were trusting kids (or incredibly gullible).
As to the original question: My folks got 1 basket to share, and we kids got one each. At Christmas they each had their own stocking, but Mom filled them both.
I say go for it.
~S
Thanks Lynn! Finally somebody obliges! I sort of guessed the concept but clearly you make more of Easter than we do in the UK. We give kids (and chocoholics) Easter Eggs which are hollow and often filled with smaller chocolates or sweets but that is pretty much it. Very occassionally you here of an Easter Egg hunt but not often.
No pressies, no traditional other foodstuffs apart from Roast Lamb on Easter Sunday, Hot Cross Buns anytime and Simnel Cake - which is scrummy (my mother being a Yorkshire girl she can bake but otherwise cannot cook for shit). If Simnel cake has not made it to the US check out:
http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/recipes/cakes/simnelcake.htm
On the continent of Europe of course Easter is a big thing (where Catholics or Orthodox are in the majority) with parades, carrying icons around town etc.
End of hijack.
We had permanent Easter baskets. I didn’t know anyone bought them every year.
DangerDad and I don’t give ourselves a basket–instead we sneak small amounts of Easter candy for a month ahead of time. Last night we each ate a mini Creme Egg, mmmmmmm… Then I always get him a small chocolate bunny from the local candy store.
Our kids are still pretty little, so I try to do some candy and a couple of fun items instead of lots of candy. This year I got bunny parachuters and a Max and Ruby book to go in there. I’ll probably go to more candy in a couple of years.