Friday Freebies: Egg Hunts

I don’t know about where you live, but where I live there are plenty of free Easter Egg hunts going on. To find a pretty good list, hop on over to Utah Kids’ Club (if you live in Utah). But unless you have a fabulous Grandpa to help you out at one of those, I would recommend staging your own. 

These eggs would be gone in a community event.

  Bossy has always loved Easter, so when she first got married, she decided to begin our annual Family (and a few select friends) Easter Egg Hunt. Taco was born in November, so he was very small at our first hunt. Bossy and Gamer lived in a little apartment right next to a busy road. There were six apartments in her building and they lived on the third floor. We arrived a little early and sat in the van while she and Gamer finished setting everything up. At the "Ready, set, GO!" the kids clamored out of the van and quickly gathered up the eggs and candy scattered around on the grass. Unfortunately, since we were on fairly public property, it was difficult to keep the neighborhood kids we didn’t know from joining in the fun. Shortly after that we started having the Egg Hunt at our house every year. 

Only at Grandma's can you sit and taste the eggs without missing out on other eggs.

We do invite other families to participate with us sometimes, but the rules are the same, no matter who comes. 

1. Leave the easy stuff for the little kids. 
2. If you find something with someone else’s name on it, leave it alone. 
3. When we are finished, we dump everything into a big bowl and then split it up equally between all participants.
4. Have fun! 

Bossy overseeing Rule #3 a few years ago.

 We rarely have any crying or fighting because we follow these rules. Big kids help little kids and we all have a great time. A few suggestions: use plastic eggs for things like jelly beans and M&Ms that will be spoiled if they get wet. We usually buy one bigger gift for each child like a Barbie or this year it is playground balls. We label those with names so everyone knows that there is one each. Things like small bottles of bubbles, tiny tubs of Play-doh, and sidewalk chalk from the dollar store can be opened and separated into many small gifts and scattered about. 

One year it was so wet outside that we had the Egg Hunt under the trampoline. My sweetie pulled a big tarp over the top early in the day and it was dry enough by the afternoon to set things out. Even though the area was small, the kids enjoyed it because it was different. Depending on the weather, we generally hold our Egg Hunt several days before Easter, sometimes as much as a week before. 

Bossy is OCD and apparently takes picture(s) like this every year. Bossy's eggs 2006.

Most years we dye our eggs on Friday night and the Easter Bunny visits on Saturday morning. That way we have a built-in excuse for skipping all the crazy egg hunts and we can save Sunday morning for celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and contemplating the religious aspects of the holiday. I firmly believe that the holiday seasons are big enough for secular and religion and by separating them a little we can enjoy both. Happy Easter!

He is Risen by Greg Olsen