Have a happy Easter with help from easter.holidayshoppingnews.com -- thanks! Holly Primo

1. How to Have a Happy Easter by Holly Primo
What are your favorite Easter memories from your childhood? Hunting for Easter eggs?
Chomping down on marshmallow peeps? Biting the ears off your Easter bunnies?
Or maybe the most magical part was the preparation: painting those eggs, and
anticipating the candy you'd get. The Easter basket, with green grass and chocolate
bunnies…maybe a stuffed chick or even a real duckling!
I'm sure you'd like to recreate some of those
fond memories for your family and especially
your kids. So here are a few tips to help you
make that happen.
For many families, Easter is about their faith,
but that won't stop anyone from enjoying
Easter egg hunts and Easter candy as a secular
celebration. Easter is a day of joy, and the
colorful eggs and accessories of traditional
Easter serve to enhance that sense of joy in the
essence of Spring and rebirth.
For kids, or course, some of the appeal of Easter
lies in the fact that it is yet another holiday
where they expect to get lots of chocolates,
candies, and other treats. And for the purposes
of this report, we'll focus on the fun aspects of
Easter, along with its joyousness.
You can have a happy Easter, celebrating
Springtime and its beauty and freedom, without
focusing entirely on sugary stuff.
Easter is a Family Affair
Families vary in how they like to celebrate Easter. So you get to pick just how you'd like
to celebrate. But in spite of the individual differences, there are a lot of themes in
common as well. Here are some of the standard ingredients:
a) Treats
Easter is (for many folks) about treats...and key among the treats are Easter eggs. It's not
Easter unless lots of eggs are tucked into the basket, along with a variety of other candy.
And about those eggs... there are so many different kinds, from chocolate eggs with and
without filling, candy eggs, marshmallow eggs, and yes, even hard-boiled eggs that have
been decorated brightly to add to the cheer.

2. Peeps, preferably in various shapes and colors, are a must as well, as are jelly beans,
which really look like miniature eggs.
Some families even have their own special baked goods for Easter, which can range from
special breads to cookies to fancy cakes with colorful Easter decorations. My mother
used to bake each of us a cake in the shape of either Easter bunnies and Easter lambs!
Some years, she let us pick which one we wanted.
b) Parades
If there's an Easter parade in town or even nearby, be sure to take the kids, and snap
plenty of pictures. If you go, you should be sure to get (or create) some special Easter
bonnets for everyone, as there are often competitions for the best Easter bonnet at these
events.
For example, Richmond, Virginia, has a special Easter parade, fittingly called "Easter on
Parade," that turns Monument Avenue, a gorgeous tree-lined Avenue with beautiful old
homes and monuments into a temporary playground for Richmond's citizens, who
wander up and down, showing off their bonnets -- and their decorated dogs. There are
contests for best bonnets, both for humans and for their canine friends.
Meanwhile, there's music playing all along the Avenue, and lots of fancy crafts as well as
yummy goodies are for sale. There are also games for kids. Parades like this one can
make for very special memories.
Children always love Egg Hunts, which many towns, villages or institutions will organize
on Easter weekend, so if you have a chance to take the kids to an Egg Hunt near where
you live, they’ll have a blast. If not, you can always hide eggs and candies tucked into
colorful plastic eggs around the house or outside in the garden, weather-permitting.

3. Getting ready for Easter: Painting Easter Eggs
One of the most cherished Easter traditions, other than actually getting and eating the
candy, involves painting Easter eggs.
You have two options: You could paint hard-boiled eggs and then eat them later, or you
could remove the eggs' contents and paint the shells to use for decorations.
In fact, you may want to do both. You can
always make a brunch frittata from the
contents of the hollowed-out eggs, and then
use them to create pretty center pieces once
you've painted them.
In order to create those centerpieces, you
could simply get Easter baskets and arrange
the eggs prettily in the "grass." Or you
could get a few branches, either with or
without leaves, and decorate them with your
colorfully painted egg shells. Of course
there are plenty of additional possibilities,
from creating a mobile and hanging it from the ceiling, to decorating a wreath with eggs
and displaying it on the front door or in the hallway.
The painted hard-boiled eggs, on the other hand, will be part of the Easter baskets meant
for consumption, and they can also be hidden for the Easter egg hunt. Just make sure the
kids find them all, or else you'll have some mighty foul odors coming from their hiding
places a few weeks down the road.
So how can you color your eggs? Once you have your "canvas" prepared, the process is
easy.
First, you need to decide whether you want to give your eggs a solid color base. If so, you
can color them in a bath of food color.
Next, you get some special Easter egg decorating tools, and paint away. It's entirely up to
you whether you want to create a designer work of art, geometric shapes, or little bunny
images. You can also incorporate stickers and special Easter egg "tattoos." If you are
coloring eggs with your kids, encourage their creativity, and above all, have fun!
Getting Ready for Easter: Shopping for Candy
It seems that every year there are more options. It's hard to decide what to get anymore.

4. A few decades ago, the choices were pretty clear. There were chocolate Easter bunnies,
chocolate eggs, candy eggs, basic yellow marshmallow peeps, jelly beans, and those
Cadbury cream eggs.
Now, the selection has grown in every direction.
Where there were only yellow chick
peeps, peeps now come in a range of
colors, including pink, blue, and
purple. There are also bunnies in
various electric colors. And yes, you
can even buy sugar-free peeps for
those of us who must avoid eating
sugar.
Next, you can select from a huge
range of other candy in all sorts of
shapes and sizes, from egg-shaped
candies with creamy fillings in
strawberry, raspberry, and coconut
flavor, just for starters.
And then, you can get Easter bunnies and related critters in all sizes, from pocket size all
the way to bunnies big enough to dwarf your toddler.
Some of the smaller chocolate bunnies also come with fillings, from marshmallow to
peanut butter and more.
How do you select the ones your kids will enjoy most? You can ask them, take them
shopping with you, get one of each and take notes for the coming year, or buy a really big
Easter basket so you can fit in a huge assortment of the options.
Speaking of baskets -- the choice will also depend on whether you're going to compose
the baskets yourself, or whether you're going to give the kids baskets filled with fake
grass that they will fill as they hunt down their goodies all over the house -- or garden.
Be sure to hold a few items back in case the outcome of the hunt is too uneven, so you
can sneak a few extra eggs into the "loser's" basket to avoid tears.
It's Not ALL About Food! What Else Can You Put In An Easter Basket?
Some parents may shudder at the thought of the Halloween-like candy overload that
could result from Easter baskets limited to edible treats. So what else could you include?
Just about anything you like, really, as long as the kids will enjoy it.

5. From CDs to games to books to cute little notebooks, pens, and erasers, you could really
include anything that would make a good stocking stuffer. It's just that for Easter, it will
go inside a basket.
You could even include small clothing items or accessories, from socks to hair
decorations, jewelry, and more. Personalized gifts are always especially welcome, and
can become a beloved heirloom.
And don't forget gifts for the parents and friends. Here, you definitely don't have to
restrict yourself to bunnies and candy, though feel free to include them, along with a
choice piece of jewelry, a new watch, or a neat new electronic gadget and even new
earphones in Easter-egg colors.
And of course, no one has decreed that all the bunnies have to be edible. Some kids will
enjoy bunnies that will be their pals for months and even years to come. In fact, a few
people take the "pals" literally and give live bunnies and even chicks. That's not always a
good idea, especially to other people’s children. Be sure to check with the parents -- they
may not appreciate the extra work. If you’d enjoy baby bunnies, remember they grow up
and become big rabbits, and even more bunnies, if you don’t watch out!
Preparing an Easter Feast
There are no real rules for what to serve for an Easter feast. Unlike Thanksgiving, Easter
doesn't usually call for Turkey. Instead, many families prepare a big ham, or rack of
lamb, or maybe a rib roast. But it's really up to you what you and your family enjoy – a
vegetarian brunch might suit you better.
Instead of including a recipe here, I'd like to encourage you to prepare your family
favorites. There is something very comforting in gathering around the traditional feast
each year.
When it comes to desserts though, feel free to get creative and include some new
elements or decorations. Unless you have a favorite dessert that's an absolute must-have.

6. What To Do About All Those Hard-Boiled Eggs After Easter?
It's actually kind of funny that there are basically three kinds of eggs that make up the
Easter repertoire: chocolate eggs, candy eggs, and hard-boiled eggs.
And of course we won't have to worry about what to do about the first two categories --
they'd keep for weeks, if necessary. But it's not likely that they survive that long.
Instead, it's the hard-boiled eggs. Once the novelty of the decorations has worn off, there
are bound to be left-overs in baskets around the house.
So gather them up and incorporate them into your meals.
Here are a few ideas for what to do with them all those eggs:
a) Deviled eggs
Cut them in half, mix up the yolks with your favorite
combination of mustard, mayo, relish, and your
favorite spices, and fill them back into the egg white
halves. Serve chilled.
b) Sliced eggs as sandwich toppings
Just slice your eggs and use them to top sandwiches.

7. c) Egg salad
Chop up the eggs, mix with mayo, mustard, and
onions, or anything else you'd like to include, and
serve as a dip or on sandwiches.
d) Other salads
You can also serve them chopped up on chef salads and in potato salads.
There's really no limit to what you can do with them. Just get creative.
There's no limit to what you can do. Take the ideas I suggested and build on them.
Consider your family's preferences and be sure to get everybody's favorites, but also add
a few potential new favorites to the mix.
Most of all, have fun, and have a very happy Easter!
________________________________________________________________________
Holly Primo lives in beautiful New Mexico with her family of five, working from home
as a virtual assistant. She is a writer and photographer who especially enjoys creating
websites for holiday decorating, cooking and personalized gifts year round. Visit
http://easter.holidayshoppingnews.com for more great Easter fun ideas.
Link: websites http://easter.holidayshoppingnews.com
Personalized gifts: http://snipurl.com/personaleastergift