Easter Fun Without the Sugar: Alternatives to Candy

For those of you who celebrate Easter, you know that the holiday is *just* around the corner. Yes, there are eggs, but most of the reason your child probably looks forward to the holiday is the influx of sugary treats: chocolate bunnies, Cadbury eggs, Peeps, Robin Eggs, jellybeans and the like. For those of you who are trying to steer away from or at least limit the sugar rush your kids will experience at the crack of dawn when they rise for their Easter egg hunt, here are some alternatives to the candy aisle:

For your eggs:

• Barrettes/hair clips

• Bouncy balls

• Bracelets

• Cascarones (you can purchase eggs filled with confetti, if you are OK with the mess)

• Cheddar Bunnies or Chickadees (from Target)

• Coins (even of the foreign variety)

• Ear buds

• Erasers

• Finger puppets

• Fingerlight (those flashlights that slip on your finger)

• Fruit rope (Clif Kids or Archer Farms from Target)

• Gum

• Harmonica

• Jacks

• Little People

• Kazoo

• LEGO minifigures

• Lip balm

• Matchbox car

• Mustaches

• Peanut butter-filled pretzels

• Play dough

• Rings

• Seeds

• Shoelaces

• Slap bracelets

• Silly Bandz

• Silly Putty

• Silly teeth

• Stickers

• Tattoos

• Wind-up toys

• Yo yos

For your baskets:

• Action figures

• Art supplies

• Bath toys



• Books

• Bookmarks

• Bubbles

• Bubble bath

• CD

• Card games

• Comics

• DVD

• Frisbee

• Kite

• Mad Libs

• Pad for drawing or writing

• Pens

• Pencils

• Plants

• Puzzles

• Sand toys

• Shirt

• Sidewalk chalk

• Slinky

• Soap

• Socks

• Stuffed animals

• Sunglasses

• Toothbrush

• Watch

• Water guns

• Wikki Stix

Here are a few places I’ve had luck finding Easter gifts in the past:

• Book People

• Dollar Tree

• Garden Ridge Pottery

• Half Price Books

• Jo-Ann Fabric

• Party City

• Target

• Terra Toys

• World Market

I hide about a dozen eggs in our backyard and one of the eggs has candy in it which my son is allowed to eat. We have a neighborhood egg hunt later in the day and that’s where he will get his candy fix.

Is there anything we should add to our list?

Happy Easter!

[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]http://www.livemom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Nicole-Basham-Sara-Marzani-Photography-livemom.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]A native Austinite and soccer-playing mom, Nicole uses her 6-year-old son as an excuse to rediscover her hometown through his eyes. In Thoreau’s words, her mission is to “suck out all the marrow of life”, or in her son’s words, to cultivate in him a love of “advenchers”.[/author_info] [/author]