As a parent I’ve always endeavoured to make Easter a memorable occasion for my children. Ever since they were tiny I’ve always made sure we did some sort of back garden Easter egg hunt, complete with little chocolate eggs and a 99p wicker basket for collecting their finds. What started off as a fairly low-key event, has rapidly grown bigger, better, more extravagant, and definitely much more expensive.
Due to the expansion of not only our own brood but that too of our siblings’ families I’ve since found myself organising Easter Sunday celebrations comparable to that of throwing a children’s birthday party. With a cooked Easter breakfast first on the agenda, followed by an egg hunt complete with clues and prizes, and a round of various “Easter themed” games, the once low key egg hunt is no more.
So why is it now as parents that we find ourselves going bigger and bigger every year for every single celebration marked on the calendar.
Halloween is no longer the black bin bag and dodgy face paint you once had as a kid (with a game of apple bobbing if you were lucky). Now you must be seen to be decorating your house from top to bottom in the most gruesome decorations you can find making sure your house is the scariest on the road. Kids Halloween costumes cost a small fortune and if you’re not seen to be throwing a party, you’re definitely not doing it right.
Pancake day is no longer lemon and sugar toppings with a failed flip on the floor. Now everyone’s pancakes must be, Insta worthy, with some kind of musically choreographed Instagram reel of the perfect flip to go alongside them.
Easter was once about watching the kids’ faces light up with delight at the tiny chocolate egg they’d found hidden under the plant pot in the garden. Now we literally find ourselves spending hundreds of pounds on this one day. From chocolate eggs to decorations, game’s, food, prizes, and drinks. The list is endless. Has anyone else noticed how the old £1 eggs have literally tripled in price!! That combined with the kids in our family having literally tripled in quantity does not make for a pleasant mathematical equation.
Don’t get me wrong I love spending these times with our families, watching the children all come together and the grandparents beaming with pride, but I wonder how it’s gotten to the huge social event it has (one year I actually dressed up in a bunny onesie to run the hunt, it was 26 degrees that Easter! 
).
I truly believe that social media plays a huge part in how we as parents actually parent nowadays. Parents and kids are no longer OK with the once small low key garden egg hunt, the shops are brimming with Easter cards and Easter presents and Easter decorations galore and grandparents are turning up with ” Easter gifts” for our already overly spoilt children.
I question if anyone really is upholding the true meaning and values of Easter. Something I myself am completely guilty of too 
Whatever you find yourself doing over Easter, whether it be a low-key back garden egg hunt. Or hosting a huge family gathering (like me) do try and remember what really is important and it’s not actually the #PerfectFamilyEaster.
Published March 2024
