Our guide to building a healthier Easter basket

Here at Magic Beans, we unabashedly love the holidays, and since we’re a company with a variety of religious traditions, there’s something different to celebrate practically every week. Every holiday has associated food, and every holiday, it seems, comes loaded with more and more sugar, and more challenges in negotiating how much and which candy your kid can eat.

You can circumvent these challenges by figuring out your own candy-free or candy-limited traditions. If your kid is used to getting an Easter basket every year that’s mostly toys and short on junk food, and if you fill it with items that won’t make them feel shortchanged when they notice that there are no jellybeans, everyone wins. We did some research and found some great suggestions – choose one of these, modify it, take some inspiration and come up with your own! After all, we know what kids in general love, but only you know what your own brood of Easter chicks will prefer.

Themed baskets

Filling an Easter basket with items that cater to your child’s particular interests is a very good way to keep them from mourning the absence of gigantic chocolate bunnies. Here are a few starting suggestions for baskets they’ll love:

•  Arts n’ crafts: Coloring books and some crayons, Sculpey clay, stamps, rolls of Tapefitti, Blendy Pens, Do-A-Dots – choose your basket ingredients depending on your child’s age and interests, give her a heap of art supplies, and watch your kid create!

• Glam and sparkle: Sparkle tattoos, glittery crafts, Hair Chox, Piggy Paint, and a tutu or two!

• Gardening: It’s just on time to start growing flowers and veggies – and what child is immune to the joys of digging in the dirt? A gardening kit, seed packets, a cute sun hat, and how about a paper flower making kit for some more immediate gratification?

Other themes we saw and loved included color-themed baskets, LEGO-themed baskets, cooking-themed baskets, beach-themed baskets, and more!

Get crafty!

You don’t have to be Martha Stewart to make a special custom basket… although, of course, it helps. Most of the gorgeous baskets in that photoset are more decorative than kid-friendly, but some of them can be modified perfectly for a child. Take, for instance, these bags – follow Martha’s directions to make a special custom bag, or just buy a kid-sized tote and stuff it with festive little gifts. (Or, get a bag your child can color herself, to maximize the fun!)

Or, how about tucking teeny toys into a basket full of faux eggs? You don’t have to go to the effort of making glittery cardboard eggs like Martha (although wow, kudos to you if you do, and please send us pictures!), since the plastic ones you can get at the store will do just fine. Then, fill ‘em with small toys: how about some small Schleich animals or LEGO keychain flashlights? Kids will love discovering a different toy in every egg!

We also loved one of the suggestions from this roundup of ideas: make or buy some Play Dough in a variety of fun colors, shape the dough into eggs, and include a bunch of Easter-themed cookie cutters and a few other shaping tools in the basket. Voila – instant fun!

Miscellaneous good stuff 

There are any number of small toys and other items that go perfectly in an Easter basket: a favorite DVD, bubbles, stickers and sticker books, kites, and Hog Wild animal poppers are all great choices.

And, most importantly: no Easter basket for any kid of any age is complete without a Jellycat plush bunny!

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