When did people start going so OTT for Easter?!

[WhackingPhoenix]

I’ve seen absolutely WILD posts on social media (and MN!) this year. Hundreds of eggs, lavish lunches and dinners, extravagant gifts and people generally spending ridiculous sums of money on Easter tat. Has this always been a thing? I had a chocolate egg as a kid and maybe a roast. That was it, surely that is the norm?

Instagram - Ideas/one-upmanship/content/FOMO
Lockdown - wanting to make the most of the opportunities we have to get together with friends /family, celebrate

I have been wondering this. I grew up in the 80s and we thought we were having a good Easter if we got more than one egg and one had smarties inside it now there’s Easter trees / Easter crafts / egg hunts all kinds of shit. I thought my wow factor as a mum only had to peak at Christmas and now this. No thanks.

I think the idea of Easter gifts is about 15-20 years old. Kids seen to get 8-12 mini/small eggs in a hunt, and a 1-5 eggs as the treasure and a small gift.

Just from parents.

My kids got 2 eggs each (one from us, one from grandparents). They had a wee Easter egg hunt (plastic eggs) and I had steak for dinner. That's how fancy we get.

Now, Christmas on the other hand....

I have no idea. Didnt even think Easter lunch was a thing but saw a thread where a woman went mad at her husband for asking family round for the day so she had to organise a big sit down Easter dinner and Easter egg hunt when her guests said they were happy to just grab pizza.

It varied when we were kids, and it varies now. I remember kids in the 80s showing off huge piles of chocolate, while we had a couple of eggs each. Some people made a big deal of having a huge family lunch, others didn't. Some went to church, others didn't.

I think presents and trees are quite new, I don't remember those...but there's always been variation in the extent to which different families make a fuss about different festivals. And there's always been a certain amount of sneering and calling other people's celebrations newfangled or naff.

Totally agree! I refuse to decorate the house for Easter, no Easter tree here. I dont even get the easter bunny to be honest!

The Easter bunny has been around for decades. So have egg hunts.

Not my experience, though given the last two Easters (second totally avoidable if Mr Johnson had acted promptly before Christmas), not surprising.

Eggs, cards, and good food for Easter have been a thing for a long long time, but Instagram and the ability of corporate pressure to convince us we need ever more crap which is just going to end up in landfill have a lot to answer for.

See: Easter wreaths on doors, Easter trees, Easter decorations, children getting actual presents for Easter (as though heaps of novelty chocolate are somehow not enough)... All of it is just more unnecessary consumption.

I wa born in the 70’s and Easter has always meant a big family lunch, Easter eggs and decorating with branches, flowers and dyed eggs. We never got gifts. I still do the same now.

I’m seeing a lot of families just delighted to be together to be honest. There are a lot of lavish meals but usually multi-generational and it’s so nice. I think people are relieved.

Maybe because its the first Easter without restrictions since 2019!!!!!!

We have a roast as per Sunday. No Easter bunny but an egg hunt and other games for the kids. Mine accumulated 5-7 eggs, some won as prizes. I do know children who will have around 12 eggs each!

I blame social media. Everything has to be 100 x better 100 x bigger.
It never used to be like this.
Grumpy 60 year old

I suspect it is social media to a certain extent. No harm in a couple of eggs and a family meal but the shops seem to have ad much landfill tat as they do at Christmas.

I'm fully aware that people will be along to say they only use decorations created after a foraging session in the woods, or that they have used the same Easter decorations since 1965 though

American Cultural Imperialism. I think it - and other things- spread through the explosion in the UK of USA TV aimed at children and youth in the late 20th century. Took off in mid 1990s when Disney Channel first started airing in UK on Sky.

There was a thread earlier someone said she'd spent 'weeks' organising Easter for her 3 year old.

I grew up with a roast dinner or lunch out and a few eggs hidden in the garden. (1980s) One relative bought me a cuddly toy in place of an egg.

I first saw decorated eggs on trees/ twigs when in Austria in about 1990. It's rather a lovely tradition to come in, but I've never done it. I suppose social media has opened people up to picking up a greater range of traditions.

Our core thing is a hunt in the garden, and we'll tend to go to church if we're around. Church has an egg hunt after!

We used to get Easter eggs, have a roast and make pace (?) eggs (used to often have a competition at school for best decorated one).

Now I just get the kids an Easter egg, my parents often do too and my aunty gives them £5. When they were little I used to do a 'tree' - basically twigs with decorated eggs on, but it was mostly just so they could do some craft stuff

Tell you what is OTT. I was in a deli the other day where they were selling an Easter Scotch Egg. It was a Cadburys creme egg covered in a chocolate brownie coating then chocolate butter cream with chocolate chips studded around the outside. Bleugh!

I was saying this! It’s turned into almost Christmas 🤔 I feel like I’m already buying family members presents for birthdays, Christmas’, weddings, new babies, anniversaries, how on earth are we adding Easter into that?! You’d be buying someone a gift about once a week!

Blame apple
2009 ? and the birth of the iPhone

Mine got £10 from their only grandparent, an egg from their Godfather and I gave them an egg and a treat.

That’s a lot less than I received as a child! I had a lot more family. I remember my Granny bringing in spring branches and decorating them too.