The Importance of the Easter Egg Hunt and coping with sugar overload

This is such an exciting time of year. The seasons start to change, clocks spring forward and we’re slowly moving out of winter hibernation as families prepare to get together outdoors and celebrate Easter with its all rituals. Whether you are Christian or religious or not, there are always rituals surrounding holidays and special occasions and families develop their own rituals passed down over the years. Despite now being in Act 3 of my life ( and yes there is an ACT 4 according to my friend Judy Reith in her fabulous book Act 3, the Art of Growing Older ), I know I am just a big kid at heart as I LOVE family rituals and it helps us all to have a sense of belonging and feeling proud to be part of team HALLIGAN.

The most important ritual for your family may be the EASTER EGG HUNT and for us as a family we have spent many a happy Easter on the East coast of Scotland in a little coastal village called Elie, where the local sports/golf club always organises the annual Easter Egg Hunt! If clues are involved even better, as we do need our littlies to earn their sugar fix, and work the brain cells to get to the loot! There’s lots you can do to make this special, whether you are having Easter at home or elsewhere.

So, given the importance of this ritual, and assuming that you may want to limit the amount of sugar in your children’s diet, as they do say ‘sugar is the new tobacco’, how do you cope at Easter when the house is overflowing with chocolate from kind hearted Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and a healthy balanced diet is high on the agenda?

1.       Avoid sugar overload.

I know easier said than done, but do set up some rules and be clear about your values around chocolate and sweets. Is it after dinner or lunch? Is it one small piece a day? Ensure you choose a good quality chocolate with a higher chocolate content and if possible mix in some protein with having chocolate to lessen the impact of that sugar rush

 2.       Non Sugar gifts

Experiment in the kitchen baking  Easter treats that don’t involve refined sugar. Carrot cake and muffins can all be made more savoury or use a sweetened replacement such as stevia which has less of an impact on blood sugar levels. And there are some fabulous cakes you can bake using vegetables – chocolate beetroot cake being one of our favourites. Your children LOVE helping in the kitchen preparing and baking and when we set time aside to get them involved, they start to feel competent. Competence breeds confidence. For my own god children, they have a small bag of mini EASTER EGGS, but I’ve added in a fabulous TROPIC cleansing body pebble, which is like an egg – something different and eco-friendly.

 3.       Join the World’s Largest Treasure Hunt and have fresh air and fun 

Get your walking shoes on, dust down the bikes and head off to the your local common and join the world’s largest treasure hunt. My family used to love GEOCACHING where you look for hidden treasure and using your phone’s GPS and you can exchange knickknacks – the hunt for the treasure is so alluring and such fun. You can do this all over the world, so when travel opens up it can be a great family ritual to always do a geo cache wherever you are in the world.

 4.       Join the National Trust Easter Egg Hunts 

Many of the National Trust properties are hosting EASTER EGG HUNTS and they have set a challenge of competing 10 nature-inspired activities that are unique to each place. You may find your littlies hopping like an Easter bunny, making a home for wildlife, or peeking into veg patches to see what’s being grown. Let’s hope the sun shines and you can have lots of fresh air and fun.

 5.       Create a juice bar

Children love juicing and playing around in the kitchen creating cocktails. Take them to your local supermarket and allow them to choose new fruit and vegetables and let them experiment juicing or blending every morning. I know it will make a bit of a mess but their enjoyment  and learning will outweigh the tidying up!

 6.       Make Family meals matter 

Use the Easter break to plan some special family meals together and get the children contributing to the meal preparation. Normally during term time there is no time to enable them to help and prepare, so give them a blunt knife and get them chopping.

 7.       Plant vegetables or grow a herb garden 

There is nothing more exciting to children than seeing the fruits of their labours and watching seeds grow. Tomatoes can be grown indoors and a  simple herb garden can be set up in pots. Give the children responsibility for watering and watch them grow in confidence as your create more self reliant children.

So whatever you get up to this Easter, the Easter egg hunt is one of those rituals that is important to create a sense of togetherness and that feeling of comfort and security, in a world where the only constant is change. Just watch out for that sugar overload!

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