When did Easter become so commercial? And does anyone roll eggs anymore?

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I feel like I’ve spent the last few weeks constantly wondering “when did Easter become so commercial? So crazy?” Easter hunts everywhere, Easter placemats, Easter crackers, fake eggs to hang from fake trees? Seriously, where has it all come from? Easter used to mean a few Easter eggs, literally one from the Easter bunny, one from my parents and one from my sister and perhaps a small one from our grandparents too. The Easter bunny also left us a few mini eggs and a creme egg in the cloth basket held by our tiny cuddly bunny. I’m talking about 5 mini eggs max. My parents had this sussed. Actually we can learn something from this, I’d love to carry on then we can eat the rest of the Mini Eggs like they used to! Well, that’s once I let the girls have Mini Eggs, they’re supposed to be exactly the same size as a toddler’s windpipe so not the safest thing to eat and something I’m keen for the girls to avoid.

Back to this new Easter commercial craziness, I’ve now stumbled across a new level of “whaaaaaat?” – apparently Easter baskets and boxes are a ‘thing’. Like, what?! Why not just give one egg each, and it doesn’t have to be a huge one, it could quite easily be a £1 egg. Why not? Why does it have to cost £10. And don’t get me started on Easter presents! Yes I understand it for little ones who don’t eat chocolate. And yes, a little bunny cuddly is fine. But toys? Why? Why bring ‘normal’ toys into Easter?

Now back to big chocolate Easter eggs, please don’t get me wrong Easter is very much about chocolate in our house, we love Easter eggs (come on if you follow me on Instagram I’ll know just how much I talk about chocolate!), but we’ve also read the Easter story, we’ve also made Easter cards, even if I did forget to post them and we have stuff ready to make Easter bonnets this weekend. Easter is not just about mountains of chocolate (and presents?!!) and that’s something I’ve been keen to press onto Toddler H. I’m not sure how long this will last but I’ve somehow successfully led H to believe that we can’t buy or eat chocolate eggs before Easter. She believes it. She pretty much tells people of in shops because she sees them popping Easter eggs into their trolleys: “we can’t buy Easter eggs mummy, it’s not Easter yet.” Meanwhile hubby and I are rather addicted to Creme Eggs for our pudding once the girls are in bed. Parenting rocks.

Some traditions seem to continue, make an Easter bonnet, or an Easter cake, maybe some Rice Crispy cakes with Mini Eggs, yes, but who’s heard of anyone painting hard boiled eggs this year to roll on Easter Sunday? You haven’t? Nope me neither. I find that really sad. It’s the tradition that’s gone out the window to be replaced by commercial rubbishness. What’s wrong with painting hard boiled eggs and rolling them? For one it actually symbolises something about why we celebrate Easter, and why we have chocolate Easter eggs in the first place. Oh, and yes, they are chocolate Easter eggs none of this ‘chocolate eggs’ malarkey.

I understand people now doing their own Easter egg hunts, but I don’t remember them being common growing up in the 80s. We’ll probably do a small hunt around the house again, hiding chicks in eggs, for H to find. She loved them last year and spent weeks after ‘hatching the eggs’ and ‘finding’ the chicks again. If I could start a new tradition I’d love this one to continue. Easter boxes, piles of Easter eggs and Easter trees, I can definitely do without. What about you? Have I missed something?