Since we largely avoid candy and other processed foods, I have to get creative and come up with other Easter basket ideas each year. As kids, my brother and I always looked forward to Easter and getting baskets with a chocolate bunny and going on Easter egg hunts. Because of these special memories I work hard to make my kids’ baskets just as special (with less of the junky stuff).
My husband and I made a decision early in our marriage to focus on giving experiences instead of material gifts, and we wanted to find ways to bring this into our holiday celebrations. Over the years I’ve found some unique ideas and themes for the yearly baskets that were not only fun for the children to receive Easter morning but help encourage family experiences as well.
Healthy Easter Baskets: Taking It Too Far?
I’ve definitely heard the objection that taking candy out of an Easter basket takes the whole healthy thing a little too far. If your thoughts are running along these lines, consider:
Easter is the second biggest candy-selling holiday of the year after Halloween. Over 16 billion jelly beans are made each year, along with millions of neon marshmallow chicks and hundreds of varieties of chocolate treats. Most of these products are now made with high fructose corn syrup, food dyes, and ingredients our bodies (and certainly our kids’ bodies) were not meant to consume.
My point is, if I’m extreme, it’s because I’m reacting to a big problem.
Since food dyes may affect behavior, and many people consume over 100 pounds of sugar a year, it is becoming increasingly important to consider healthier alternatives even on holidays. These simple switches don’t take away any of the fun or tradition … they just reduce the sugar and food dye content.
Certainly, sometimes the stress of choosing natural options can outweigh the benefits, but I feel this is a holiday where we can definitely make improvements. We can still celebrate all that Easter is meant to be without going to extremes on either end of the spectrum.
Ok, that’s out of the way… on to Easter baskets!
25+ Candy-Free Easter Basket Ideas
Here’s some of our family’s favorites from Easters over the years. Hopefully some of them get the wheels turning and inspire some ideas perfect for your family!
Experience-Based/Themed Easter Basket Ideas
I think these experience-themed baskets are more fun and long-lasting than a sugar-laden basket of candy. Create an Easter basket based around an activity or theme like gardening, baseball, swimming, or camping and give your kids the gift of a new skill or favorite pastime.
These are some of my favorite themes from past Easter baskets:
Gardening Basket
A favorite in the past and a theme we choose again from year to year. I use inexpensive clay pots for the “baskets” and fill them with child-size gardening gloves, seeds, small garden tools, and other garden-related items. Each child gets a different type of seeds that we will use in our garden and gets to help me start the seeds, plant in our raised beds, and water throughout the year.
Camping Basket
One year, to help stock our camping supplies, each child received camping items in their baskets. They got sleeping bags, flashlights, binoculars, whistles, and camping silverware (we carry the dishes).
Sports Basket
Baskets with gear to play certain sports and even tickets to our local minor league teams to go to games as a family throughout the year are always a family favorite. One year we put in new attachments for our Ninja line in the backyard.
Movie Night Basket
Our kids really enjoy family movie nights, so their baskets could contain summer PJs and movie tickets or DVDs/Blu-Ray discs. Each kid gets a different movie and gets to “host” that movie night by making snacks and setting up for the movie. (Perennial favorites at our house are How to Train Your Dragon and Cinderella.)
Craft Basket
Every mom knows the challenge of keeping kids pleasantly and productively occupied (especially in the summer months, which are coming not long after Easter!). Craft-themed baskets are perfect for this. I might fill the baskets with craft supplies like construction paper, glue, scissors, buttons, and modeling clay.
Scavenger Hunt Basket
With this idea, the basket is part of the experience. Some years when we want to just give one experience/gift to all of the kids that won’t fit in a basket, we create a scavenger hunt around the gift and leave the clues in their baskets. Hide one part of the first clue in each basket so the kids can work together to find the first clue and lead them on a scavenger hunt to the final destination or gift.
Easter Basket Filler Ideas
If you don’t want to follow a theme for an Easter basket, just fill it with a random assortment of items that encourage activity and experiences, such as:
- jump rope (this one has bunnies on the handles!)
- holy cards or devotional books
- card games
- jump gym passes
- puzzles
- bowling lane tickets
- ingredients to make natural slime
- outdoor games
- Legos
- water guns
- kid-sized cooking tools
- playdough “carrots” (such a cute idea!)
- beach towels and toys
- wooden airplanes
- hair accessories
- kites
- a potted plant or a packet of seeds (kids love to take care of something of their own)
- coupon for a lunch date with Mom or Dad
- sticker pads
Easter Eggs
Easter eggs are a tradition I can appreciate, with a beautiful significance at this time of year. Of course I have some suggestions when it comes to how to dye easter eggs naturally. Check out this post for more on that!
When using fake plastic Easter eggs to hide treasures, instead of candy fill the eggs with small items like coins or “points” that can be used “buy” bigger prizes from a box. Better yet, hide real eggs or create a scavenger hunt with clues that ends at a fun prize or destination!
And When There’s Time: Try Homemade!
Just say no to the neon jelly beans and marshmallow chickens! Skip the chocolate bunnies and Cadbury eggs completely and consider making healthier chocolate, marshmallows, or gelatin fruit snacks (maybe in an Easter-themed mold).
And although it’s not as convenient, homemade candy comes with a bonus: quality time together preparing for Easter.
If there just isn’t time for homemade (sometimes there just isn’t!), Thrive Market has a great selection of candy made with more natural ingredients.
An Easter Basket to Treasure
It takes a little thinking outside of the box to come up with new Easter basket ideas, but I’m confident that in the end our kids don’t feel deprived or miss out the celebration of the season. In fact, it’s amazing how colorful, sweet, and festive a healthy Easter basket can be. I hope these ideas help you fill your Easter baskets with surprises, joy, and good health!
What special family traditions do you treasure at Easter? Do you have healthier Easter basket ideas to share? I’d love to hear!
In the past, I have put pieces to a puzzle in the eggs. Sometimes one puzzle for all the kids to work on together and sometimes one puzzle per kid denoted by the color of eggs (Johhny’s puzzle pieces were in the blue eggs, etc.) As a kid I always received pajamas or a swimsuit in my Easter basket. Thanks for all the ideas everyone.
Love this puzzle idea!
Love this idea! Really great idea for the grandkids…they will love it! Thank you for posting!
We always do a fun bathing suit to start the season along with fun glasses, flip flops. A cute coverup or sundress and fun chunky junk jewelry. For the boys the same, swim trunks, flip flops and a new dvd movie. Fun bracelets for girls and guys. I would also include some candy, not much but sometimes I would make my own with Easter molds.
Cute i was putting together garden baskets this year i got them a little solar light for in their flower pot.
To the poster above (Kate) There other health reasons not to do candy. I have 5 children, 2 have allergy’s to dairy, 2 have allergy’s corn and 1 is on a Keto diet for epilepsy. So i have one child that could maybe have candy and that would be unfair to the other four.
Personally i love that she is posting other ideas besides candy.
My mil took 2 cloth diapers ( the kind I use) and pinned them together with a baby book inside as a basket. Loved it!
I’m totally with you Wellness Mama on avoiding the excess sugar, dyes and all the other crap that is put into ‘Easter candy.’ Yes it’s once a year, but how many other holidays are once a year? That’s my issue when it comes to just letting them indulge once a year. It will never be that sparingly because once a child is introduced to all of these artificial treats…you will have a hard time trying to explain why only on Easter can they have it and not on Halloween or Christmas or New Years or st Patrick’s day, and even birthday parties. My family probably deals with this likely because of where we live, but we don’t do candy or other treats kids eat no matter the occasion unless I know what is in it and am ok with it or I make it and use ingredients I am ok with being in food. I struggle with this sometimes because I feel bad about excluding my toddler when all of her cousins are eating this stuff, but I just can’t stomach knowing what it is so I always bring home made treats, or something of the like.
I usually do Easter baskets with crafts, outdoor stuff like chalk, gardening tools, stickers, healthy treats, books, etc.
this yr i will add kid friendly jokes in plastic easter eggs.
I love this idea – thanks for sharing!
That is a cute idea
Great ideas! I just put together a basket with no candy before I saw this post. I love the idea of a theme, though, and might use that next year.
To the posters above, the problem with “candy is okay once a year” is that it’s never once a year. There’s a holiday every single month (sometimes more than one). Add in birthdays (family, friends and co-workers) and then the excuses because you’re in a rush or too tired to cook/prepare or there’s a sale or someone made cookies or blah, blah, blah, that “once a year” can easily turn into every single day. Easily – I’m not exaggerating. So a lot of us choose to keep it in check and use alternatives every time. That’s been my experience, anyway!
Yes! Completely agree
When I was a kid, my uncle would bring me candy on his bi-annual visits. Of course I would eat the candy and be sick because I was not used to it so my mother finally told him no more candy. The thing is, I would have been happy with some fruit, a game or anything he brought. Kids who don’t have candy all the time don’t feel deprived or I didn’t, I had other things that I enjoyed.
Hi Wellness Mama,
Lent is the 40 Day penitential season book ended by the feasts of Fat Tuesday and Easter. It is a time when Christians fast, give alms and pray in order to better heed the call of Our Lord Jesus Christ to do for the least of these out of love for Him.
40 Days is the same period of time that Jesus fasted and prayed in the desert. It is also a perfect amont of time to bring about change. We can loose habits that keep us from God (addictions, obsessions, etc.) and form habits (prayer) that draw us closer to Him. We take the money that is saved by not indulging in luxuries such as meat and coffee, etc., and donate it to those less fortunate, even if it does not come from our excess, like the widow in Gospel.
The bible tells us to raise up our children in the way they should go, but because little bodies need nourishment to grow big and strong, they cannot fast as an adult would . By giving up non essential treats, children can also participate in the penitential season of the Church. Easter ends the fast and everyone is ready for CHOCOLATE!!!! Parents are happy to reward the valiant efforts of their little future saints with an Easter basket filled with goodies
On a related note here is information about the Easter egg.
The egg is a wonderful symbol of birth and rebirth, an apparently lifeless object out of which comes life. Because of this, it is a symbol of Christ’s Resurrection and is seen most often at Easter. In 2006, a necropolis under the Vatican revealed an infant who’d been buried holding an egg to symbolize his parents’ hope in his resurrection, because of Christ’s Resurrection.
Legend has it that St. Mary Magdalen went to Rome and met with the Emperor Tiberius to tell him about the Resurrection of Jesus. She held out an egg to him as a symbol of this, and he scoffed, saying that a man could no more rise from the dead than that egg that she held could turn scarlet. The egg turned deep red in her hands, and this is the origin of Easter eggs, and the reason why Mary Magdalen is often portrayed holding a scarlet egg.
Easter comes but once a year and while it’s good to keep sugar in check, a little annual excess to celebrate the Resurection is ok…
….”Unless you’re a diabetic,” As my 5 year old daughter reminded me when I said, “Chocolate makes every thing better…”
I’m with you. I can get behind (at least in theory) limiting/eliminating sweets and candy most of the time. But I think not even doing some candy once a year on Easter is going too far. It is NOT going to kill anyone and it’s extremely appropriate as a way to feast after the long fast of lent. Besides, candy is practically the whole point of the Easter basket. 🙂 But maybe I’m reading the wrong blog… 😉
I was just wondering about how to create a basket minus all the candy. Very good ideas. I will also avoid all plastic!
I think you could probably still add a couple of natural yummy chocolate treats to your creative Easter baskets. I just had some incredible completely organic chocolate chili almonds. They were super tender and were dusted in cocoa powder with just a tiny kick of chili powder. You could probably easily make them. I put a few of these in a little bowl, along with some organic raisins and shaved unsweetened organic coconut flakes. You could always make tiny little bags of these goodies for your baskets… Dried organic fruits in little bags would work too. You could also use little see through bags with pink bows….