Did you read that as a chant of protest?
Because that’s how it went in my head.
I despise Easter grass, so this year I’m fighting back by . . . not having any.
Except that the purpose of Easter grass is to be filler. So, to take up lots of space, I’m using:
Tennis balls. The boys are heading into baseball season and we won’t let them bat in the front yard (for fear of broken windows) unless they’re using tennis balls.
For my daughter? A pool float. Folded, it takes up a good amount of basket space, and it’s something she’ll need soon anyway.
My back-up plan? Colorful tissue paper. Big sheets that can be thrown away in one wadded-up-handful instead of lurking under couches and in corners for the next three months.
Have a wonderful Easter weekend!
ha ha. I don’t like having the Easter baskets and I’m a super cheap Mamma so we just don’t do baskets at all. No grass. no baskets,……since we’ve never done it my kids (ages 2, 4, 6, 7, ) don’t know otherwise. We’ll be in trouble when they get older and see what we “deprived” them of lol.
Sometimes we do find the after holiday candy for 90% off and pick up some then 🙂
We don’t do baskets either! Our Sunday mornings are so busy anyway that the kids don’t miss them. We used to do baskets for a while, then our Easter morning and afternoon changed. The kids will get candy from other people and we too wait to buy some when it’s marked down after the holiday. 🙂
Love the tissue paper idea! I might have to use that.
Easter grass (like Christmas icicles) seems to multiply and grow when left alone. Somehow it escapes from those cute little baskets and scatters to every corner of the house only to be brought out by sticking to my bare feet sometime mid-July. What a PAIN! I’m with you on the boycott! Slobs of the world, Unite! NO MORE EASTER GRASS!!! 🙂
I too HATE easter grass! 🙂 I use thick crafting paper, like card stock – folded it up like a fan then cut it up making long crinkled ‘grass’. I have enough craft paper hanging around it didn’t cost me anything extra and can be recycled afterwards. Plus I don’t have to pull it out of my son’s, dog’s & cat’s mouths after they try to eat it like they ALWAYS do with the grass & xmas icicles. 🙂 They don’t eat the paper! 🙂 Plus, I just don’t see how that grass & icicles can be good for the environment… 🙂
I always roll up new socks and underwear to put in the bottom of the basket.
I picked shredded paper this year, rather than the static-y Easter grass. I’m hoping it will be easier to sweep up and actually GET RID OF, after the fact!
Can also use “bagged air” covered with tissue. My dd is getting underwear on the bottom of her basket. lol!
We’re using T-shirts! My kids actually wrote to the easter bunny last year asking him NOT to use the grass because it make Mom crazy! LOL!
I’m with you! I didn’t want to do candy this year for our kids so I got them little gifts for each egg. But then I didn’t want all that plastic crap for our house, so I got bigger gifts. I was going to put numbers in eggs to correspond to gift bags with the larger gifts. No egg? No gift. Then I realized that they were going to have as much stuff as Christmas if I wasn’t careful, so now I don’t know what I am going to do! But none of it will involve Easter grass. So that’s something, I guess.
We started skipping out on grass all together!!!! IT is HORRID!!! Last year, we got the kiddos baseball hats, and with a bunny, and a couple eggs, it was full 🙂 No need for fillers!!
My goal, come up with a useful “basket” that doesnt need that grass….
the kids get quite a bit here (havent done the grass in years..just fill it with bigger things like you do ..or shoping bags stuffing the bottom and covered with tissue paper…
we always take easter as a chance to give them, what we’d end up buying anyways…new pool floats, sand toys, bubbles, chalk, outside toys..stuff we’d give them anyways to play with outside…
I switched from plastic to paper grass years ago (for our niece and nephew, before we had a kid of our own) when I found it in the litter box, obviously “processed.”
Yikes.
We did easter baskets for the first time last year, because I went nuts in the clearance section of the grocery store. Or nuts for me. They got pastel bubbles (which it turns out stained) and egg shaped chalk, and a few silly toys, the rest was plastic eggs filled with what pass for treats in our house.
Skipped the easter grass since I hadn’t really planned to do the baskets in the first place. Sometimes my slobbiness (here expending absolute minimal energy) saves me from slobbiness-since I never didn’t it in the first place, I don’t have to clean it up in the second.
Although the hardest part afterwards was getting the plastic eggs away from them afterwards since they wanted to use them as toys. Toys perfectly designed for being scattered all over and then forgotten.
Great job on finding something else besides the grass for those baskets. My boys are older, so haven’t done baskets in a long time. I did want to wish everyone a Happy Easter and hope that everyone has a safe and wonderful time with their families this weekend.
This year it is a little late, I know, but next year you could also just grow real Easter grass in baskets and put the trinkets on top. Just get some rye or cat grass or whatever and put the seeds into (plastic-lined) baskets with a little soil. Sprinkle with water, wait – and afterwards you can just put it in the garbage or compost (or let it grow, it looks nice).
I have used Easter grass of every sort (except the kind you grow yourself. I’m curious about that.) I’ve hated every kind. I too have had the plastic process in the litter box. And actually had to assist the delivery. So we put clothes in the nottom of a reusable bucket. Around these parts, Easter is typically when the seasons change. Plus if we’re no home, we’ve got.an extra set of.clothes for emergencies. I don’t do a stuffed a animal. Kids.don’t play with them so we.choose a large book or DVD and fill with goldfish-type crakers, granola bars and good candy. Not the cheap stuff the kids won’t eat and ends up in the trash anyway.
I’m so afraid of our cats eating the plastic grass that I’ve always used the shredded paper grass. It is so much easier to vacuum up, and probably better for the environment, too.
I had a $1000 vet bill last Aug. after my cat got in the closet and ate the grass out of the basket that was put away. This year I will be using tissue paper for the 1st time.
Oh no!!!
I read a suggestion about using cheer pompoms for a girl’s basket.
amen!
Are you referring to this kind of easter grass?
http://organizedbyjenn.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/146-730_large1.jpg
I did not first get what was the issue with easter grass, not until I read the comments and I realized you are not maybe talking about real live easter grass. In Finland chocolate eggs are given to kids (and adults too), nothing else. And we might grow some easter grass.
Yes, that’s it! It’s awful stuff!
I think I like the Finnish way! 🙂
well, my kids are grown now, but i would always put a nice shirt that they could where for the day in the bottom, i would wrap it in the colored basket wrap or tissue paper. it always worked well, and just like you no headache from that easter grass.
blessings,
to all on this wonderful day
I love the socks and underwear idea! We haven’t used Easter grass for years. I just don’t bother with anything. Throw the candy in the basket and hide it. Here’s one you’ll love – We did a big pre-Easter clean here this past week (because we haven’t been keeping up with things – surprise, surprise – and the house was an absolute pit). I told the kids, “can’t hide Easter baskets in a messy house!” to which my smart-allecky 10 y/o son says, “Wouldn’t it be easier to hide the baskets if the house is a mess?” What was worse was when our 18 y/o daughter (who is also a smart-aleck) came home and said the same thing!!!
I have never used Easter Grass. It just seemed like waste from the beginning. I’ve used cloth napkins to fill the bottom of the basket. This year, I was really lazy and didn’t even put the cloth napkins in. I just through the little gifts in the basket and left it on the kitchen table for my daughter to find. She loved the basket, and did not miss the filler at all.
I banned that stuff several Easter’s back. I was still cleaning it up months later, and that was not going to happen again.
The edible easter grass is kinda cool…but that’s just too much sugar.
So I did what you did. Single green sheet of tissue paper crumpled in the bottom of the basket (looked nicer than it sounds).
I stopped using Easter grass long ago. My kids are 12, 10 , & 3… They get books, games, educational kits, little toys, stuffed animals and a bit of candy…. This year they are getting gardening stuff, some little pots, seeds, gardening gloves, etc. I don’t use any filler… I wouldn’t have room! LOL!
I’ve used Pom Pom’s for my daughter the past few years. She loves them and plays with them all year. You can even find them in boy colors at Michael’s. Looks the same as Easter grass but no mess.
Green tissue paper was always the “grass” in our baskets. My mom fought the battle of The Easter Grass. I saw no need to do the same.
I don’t do baskets at all anymore…….
I use a couple of my kids old fuzzy baby blankets in the bottom. They love it because it’s personal.
Instead of baskets, put the Easter goodies in something useful. Maybe a storage container for Legos or makeup. A new hat as a basket. This year I found baskets at the Dollar Tree to be used as a trash can in the older boys’ rooms and for the younger boys’ socks (since they are always MIA). No waste and its smaller than a typical basket thus less candy. Win-win.
I use a linen napkin on the bottom. I learned my lesson really quick when my boys were small.
My baskets as a kid always had Easter grass but it was the same grass every year we never took it out of the baskets they got put away with it inside and I have the same thing with my girls their Easter grass stays in the basket and has for 5 years now with no mess and now waste not quite sure what the bid deal is if you get good stuff that does not fall apart it should not be a mess and need to be replace yearly!
That’s a good idea, tissue paper. I always cringe as I take the bag off the shelf, knowing full well that my cat will be doing everything in his power to try and eat the stuff.
It’s banned at our house too. Easter grass is deadly and can kill your pets if ingested. No Easter grass here!!!
Every time I don’t use Easter grass, someone sends the kids something with Easter grass! I didn’t like it as a kid…and I hate it as an adult. As a kid, something was always falling under it and you would have to take all the grass out to get to some of your stuff. As an adult, it is a pain to clean up and I find it in the strangest places months later….I know I have swept and mopped the bathroom 10 times–where in the world did this grass come from?
I always thought the point was to hunt for hidden eggs and fill an empty basket with your treasures.
It is. But we use a different basket or plastic bags for those.lol
Wiffle balls are cheaper than tennis balls. . . I have paid for one window. That was enough! I also use odds and ends of school supplies as filler. Everything is running out this time of year!
My favorite basket filler is aspen wood excelsior. It comes in amazing colors and blends. I find it at michaels craft stores.
I love this idea! I recently found your blog and have been reading from the beginning on. I just started reading your current daily posts and flipping back to where I left off. Thank you for all your tips!
Started reading from the beginning and had to put in my two cents even if it isn’t anywhere close to Easter. We have the kids cut thin strips of color ad pages and put their eggs and candy in that. After Easter, chuck it in the recycle bin or BBQ. No one gets more than a reasonable amount of candy; it’s mostly hard boiled eggs or plastic ones from the egg hunt. These last have small amounts of money in them, usually ranging from a quarter to a five dollar bill.
I learned a long time ago that I was better off making my own baskets. They change each year but they get what they need. I started getting them the storage baskets from the dollar tree until they got the storage they needed. Then on the inside they usually get a new beach towel and swim suit. I usually get them the resses pieces that look like a carrot and another thing or 2 of candy. Everything used. When they didn’t need anymore baskets I got them each one and just reuse it.
Easter Grass=glitter=crazy stressful.
The last piece of tinsel (don’t get me started) is discovered and cleaned up the day Easter grass comes out and vice versa! (If you are lucky!)
When our girls were little, we had a ritual of collecting natural grasses from the fields the day before Easter. We had a nice walk in the fresh air, and the girls were excited to make “nests” in their baskets for the bunny. We also peeled a carrot and left it near the baskets for the bunny. The girls were excited the next day to see the bunny had taken little nibbles out of the carrot.