Recycling Easter

My mother-in-law, who passed away in 2008, was a treasure-trove of tips and tricks and methods and habits that I've cherry-picked for our family and home management. She was a child of the depression era so many of her practices were born from frugality. Recycling bits and pieces of holidays and turning them into "traditions" and nostalgia is one of them.

My husband and his sister not only woke up to the same baskets for their entire childhood but the same tin egg, crank-music egg, and other sundries that they looked forward to every year. I was enchanted with this practice when I spent my first Easter dinner with my husband's family. I didn't decide then that I'd do the same thing, but I've been doing it ever since my oldest had her first basket.

Each year, the kids get the same stuffed bunny or in Mark's case a duck in a blue bunny suit and a big plastic egg with Lucky Charms. That sound of the cereal shaking inside the egg when they woke up and found the egg in their beds (or cribs way back) was better than any alarm clock. I also recycle the cellophane grass for their baskets. Some of you are more classy and use something that looks less tacky but I love the Easter "grass". Over the years, uncles or aunts have given them little toys and a few of them have held up over the years and disappear sometime after the holiday and reappear on Easter morning.

Finally, you know how stuffed animals multiply like bunnies? For some reason we happen to have accumulated an inordinate number of stuffed bunnies. I keep these in a bin in the attic and usually the week before Easter, they make their appearance and the 2 younger kids place them all over the house or play with them. Since they're getting older, the novelty is definitely wearing off but I'll bring them out as long as they ask.

I'm not sure this is "simple". I'm sure there are much more simple traditions but I do look forward to pulling these few things out every year.

I don't save everything and keep the baskets pretty simple otherwise.