Five years ago, I posted a big list of 106 fillers for plastic Easter eggs. I don't remember now what prompted the list, maybe an urge to cut down on the amount of candy my kids were eating or just a general feeling of being stumped in the gifting department.
Over the years, I have gotten loads and loads of comments on the fact that there's a pocket knife on the list (they're dangerous! what was I thinking?!) and I explain to each commenter that a pocket knife is a perfectly reasonable egg filler for a tween or teen, all of whom still enjoy and appreciate Easter egg hunts.
So imagine my surprise when I was looking for my pin on Pinterest and discovered scores of pins, all featuring a pocket knife! I was very disheartened to know that all these other bloggers most likely copied my list. Sometimes the internet just sucks.
But in a way, I am flattered that other bloggers thought my list was so good that they copied it (many of them copying it word for word with all the items in the exact same order). But still, I wanted to make my original list better and bigger and more valuable than all those cheating copycats.
So I spent some time over the weekend beefing it up, deleting things I thought were no longer relevant and adding a bunch of new stuff. I also added links for many of the items, especially the hard to find ones, and I made up a pretty printable list to match the original one.
Another change I made was to remove all the traditional Easter candy that was on the list. While we probably all love those hard shelled chocolate eggs (I know I do), none of us really need them and there are scores of other options that don't involve pumping our kids full of sugar.
I did keep gummi bears for a reason I can't quite understand myself. They are candy, but they aren't Easter candy and somehow they slipped through the cracks until after I'd committed to a list of 132 things and made all the graphics and I simply couldn't think of one more thing that would fit inside even the biggest plastic Easter egg to replace them with. So they stayed.
If you want to get the new and improved list with all the new and improved links, head over to the Easter egg fillers post, which my too cool 12-year-old said is filled up with both good and lame ideas. She is not at all impressed with my fold up toothbrush idea and said that any parent who puts one in their children's Easter eggs will be mocked for all eternity.
What do we put inside our kids' Easter eggs?
I do not use this list for Easter eggs anymore, although I did at one point. We have a very simple Easter egg stuffing plan now, and it is simultaneously brilliant and cheap and both mess and sugar free.
Joe and I go to the bank on the day before Easter, and we acquire 6 rolls of silver coins - 1 roll each of quarters, nickels, and dimes per kid. It costs $15 per child which is about the same as a bunch of bags of jelly beans and chocolate goodies, most of which will melt in the April sunshine while the eggs are waiting to be discovered.
On that trip, we also buy 4 sleeves of plastic eggs in 2 distinct color patterns. (I usually get 2 brights and 2 pastels. I have thought about 2 glittered and 2 metallic, but those eggs are a lot more expensive than the plain ones, and I am cheap given this egg hunt has just cost me $30 in coins.).
That night, Joe and I watch our favorite show on Netflix and stuff plastic eggs each with 3 coins. When the coins run out, the eggs are finished, even if we have some leftover. Or, if the eggs run out first, we keep the rest of the coins because they were ours to begin with and we're greedy like that. Be near, sweet Jesus.
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