A day or two after I had the internal Easter basket debate, I came across this post in a blog that I religiously follow.
I said the story of why the Easter bunny is week late this year is a different post, and it is, but the important part of the story goes along with this theme. We were supposed to go to my parents house for Easter dinner. My mom had Easter baskets all made up. My dad, well, he's my dad, so he had "a lot of work" for him and Monster to do together. The Friday before Easter, Monster woke up, came into my room telling me, "I need to wear my work clothes to Nana and Papa's house for Easter because Papa and I are going to do some work". Can you see what was important? The Easter basket waiting for him? Nope, it was the time he was going to get to spend with just Papa. When Easter Sunday came and Monster couldn't go, he was devastated He woke up, after 11 hours of throwing up, telling us he felt much better and could go with us. Was he sad that the Easter bunny didn't come with junk filled eggs? Nope. Was he sad he didn't get his Easter basket filled with goodies? Nope. He was heartbroken he couldn't spend time with his Papa. Unfortunately, in our family, time is not something most of our extended family seem to want to give our kids. I keep trying to get this through to people, my kids don't care about the stuff, they want time. I can't comprehend why this is such a difficult concept. I know this isn't just my kids. I don't know where people starting "buying kids off" instead of spending time with them. I promise you that 10 years from now, no one is going to remember what was stuffed in a plastic egg, but they will remember the time that was spent doing things. They may not remember exactly what they did, but they will remember the fun they had.