Thanks to Cadbury for sponsoring this post and reminding me to get my Easter hunt game on.
Believe it or not, we will be emerging from this deep freeze before you know it, ready to celebrate the reawakening of nature and newness of life that is Easter. And we will do that by hiding chocolate eggs that have supposedly been laid by a bunny rabbit all around our homes. It doesn’t have to make sense to be the most fun thing ever! I’ve been at this for nine years now, so learn from my many rookie Easter hunt mistakes and let the games begin.
1. Draw some boundaries.
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Remember that the goal of an Easter egg hunt is not to stump your kids and trash your house. Limit the area where the eggs will be hidden to a couple common rooms (we do living room, dining room and front hall) and your life will be vastly improved.
2. Know those suckers can melt.
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My favourite childhood memory is when we celebrated Easter morning in a hotel room and then continued on our road trip the next day and left all the chocolate in the car and it all melted into soupy puddles. Wait, no, that was horrible! Chocolate left near the window, heating vents or heat-emitting electronics can also cause melt downs. Be warned.
3. Age appropriate hiding spots are where it’s at.
Beside a chair leg or on a lower shelf is a FANTASTIC hiding spot for a toddler or preschooler. As kids get older, you can put the eggs in harder to find places. (With limits! No rummaging through the china cabinet!) And make sure you tell older kids to leave the easy-to-find eggs for their little sibs.
4. Give them something to put those eggs in.
We always leave a mostly empty basket with a chocolate bunny or two and a (gasp) non-chocolate gift from the Easter bunny. This means each kid gets to collect and keep her own eggs and eat them at her own pace. (Note to kids: If you wait too long, your siblings will finish their stash and then turn around on feast on yours too. I promise this will happen.)
5. REMEMBER where you hid them.
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Don’t outsmart yourselves, parents, or you’ll be feeding Cadbury Dairy Milk to ants and mice and those pests deserve nothing more than old toast crumbs. Do you hear me, ants? No Dairy Milk for you!
6. Don’t wait until the last minute.
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Learn from my mistakes on this one, especially. Last year I had to go to no less than four different stores to find what I needed for Easter chocolate. This also meant I spent WAY more than what I would have otherwise and had to settle for whatever subpar chocolate was left on the shelf. I’m still upset about it.
7. Quality control
And, really, this is just another reason to stock up in plenty of time. You know those rumours about how Cadbury changed the Cream Egg recipe? While it’s true that the recipe in Canada didn’t change at all, I wanted to be extra sure. After a *ahem* generous sample size, I can assure you that they are just as good as ever. But you’ll probably want to try for yourself. I get that. Now on to finding out how good the Mini Eggs are this year.
This post was brought to you by Cadbury, however the images selected and opinions are my own. For more information please visit https://www.facebook.com/CadburyCremeEggCanada.