Easter

[Charlie Arnold]

Yes, it is that time again that parents like myself dread. When I grew up, in the olden days as Meg likes to call them!!! we decorated boiled eggs, picked daffodils and went to church in the morning. Now it is all about CHOCOLATE. Some may be able to tolerate chocolate or sugar free chocolates but Megan can't so we had to think of healthy alternatives.

So what can we do about it. Easter to us is a family day, like Christmas. Have a nice roast dinner and a walk hopefully in the sun together. But all around us are Easter Egg hunts and a total excess of chocolate. Now this is a big problem for my little chocoholic so we have always made contingency plans. Luckily I only have the one child so I don't have to cater for several different tastes but we do join up with next doors three children and this is what we did.

Go and raid the local Poundshop or cheap store that sells all those cheap trinkets and toys in advance. little cheap rubbishy things like fluffy chicks, bracelet, toy bunnies, anything slightly eastery. Also stock up on an easter basket craft kit, or some good cardboard and some stickers or other art stuff. Also hard boil some eggs ready and this is how the day can go.

1. Using paints decorate the hardboiled eggshell however they want.
2. Make and decorate an easter basket ready for collecting your 'eggs' in the hunt.
3. Cut out some cardboard egg shapes and number them or decorate them, or write each childs name on them, cut out maybe 5 or 6 per child. These are what you hide for the Easter Egg hunt.
4. Have a stock of all the little things you have bought ready eg, plastic eggs, I found chicken shaped candles and soap this year, little fluffly chicks and as they come back with their eggs they have found you can do an exchange for them to put in their baskets.
5. This way they have their Easter Egg hunt and have prizes that last long after the chocolate would have melted or been eaten.