Was That Easter or Christmas?

As we all know, yesterday was Easter Sunday.  Although, if you looked at my facebook feed you might have been confused and thought it was Christmas instead.  Saturday night my news feed started being inundated with pictures of these over the top Easter baskets that people had ready for the morning.  I was kind of taken aback.

When did Easter turn into some huge gift explosion of a holiday?

My memories of Easter growing up were of waking up and finding out Easter baskets outside of our bedroom door.  We would then start to hunt the little foil covered chocolate eggs that the Easter bunny/my mom had hidden throughout the house.  Our baskets would have jelly beans and some other candy filled eggs in them. And we loved them.

Now I was seeing these "baskets" overflowing with gifts and toys and so many things that I couldn't even wrap my head around it.  I'll admit that Andrew's basket included a few little things. There was a coloring book ($1 bin at Target) some bubbles, pez dispensers from his grandma, egg shaped sidewalk chalk (that I think was actually a birthday gift from daycare) some candy and some peeps.  I'm fairly certain that the peeps and most of the candy will be eaten by my husband.  

Oh, and there was a little tool set that my husband brought back from his out of town trip the weekend before that we decided to give him or Easter instead of just giving it to him randomly.  I thought that was even weird. Easter is not a gift holiday.  Actually, to me no holidays are gift holidays except for birthdays and Christmas.

I seem to be in the minority, however.  Every holiday that comes to pass seems to be met with huge over the top displays of gifts.  Has it always been this way and I am just now noticing because it's splashed all over my news feed?  Or is it becoming this way because people feel the need to out do their peers and show off how much they get for their kids - to show what great parents they are?

Either way, I don't want to fall in to that trap.  I don't want to set the precedent that every holiday is going to mean gifts and excess.  I want my boys to appreciate things when they receive them, not just expect that they will be showered with things because the calendar says it's a holiday.

That being said, here are some pictures of our Easter weekend:

Hard at work coloring our eggs.  

Digging in to his Easter basket.  He was very excited about the candy.  Next year's basket will not include a separate gift.

Finding the eggs hidden in his shoes

And the ones going up the stairs

The rest of our Easter was very low key.  We suck and didn't go to church or anything. And honestly I didn't even really get out of sweats all day so there are no cute family pictures with the boys all dressed up in their Easter best.  Maybe next year...