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?

I tell you what is shit: having the smarties/chocolates in a plastic bag NOT INSIDE THE EGG.

It's miserable.

You pay for the packaging now with Easter eggs.Back in the 80's we had fabulous Easter eggs with bunny scenes imprinted on the egg and you cracked it open to get more treats inside plus the chocolate tasted a lot nicer than today.

Well Easter is as important as Christmas, if not more so, for Christians so Easter has always been a big deal. Commercially, it is just that, an opportunity for spending. However I think the combination of the response to lockdown cabin fever and social opportunity and good weather (at least where I am) has meant more socialising and therefore more eggs and easter gifts.

Growing up we had a big dinner.

Over the long weekend we would do Easter crafts, mainly decorating Easter bonnets and Easter baskets with fresh flowers and foliage from the garden. Also we'd do floral centrepieces when we were a bit older. We also painted eggs and hung them on the fruit trees in the garden.

Then Sunday morning a big Easter egg hunt, usually with cryptic clues leading you to the next one and so on until finally an Easter egg.

This was in the 90s and I have lovely memories of it. No plastic tat required and all very sustainable - we used to spend Easter Monday removing all the fresh (and by that point wilted) foliage and put the baskets and bonnets away for the following year.

I suppose that Easter might seem more of a 'thing' than it used to be but as a nation we have also lost many festivals and celebrations that we once celebrated.
May Day with parades and a May Queen and children dressing up, maypoles etc was once a popular celebration but now many people have never heard of it and you might get a novelty display of maypole dancing once in a while but it's really not a 'thing'.
Once we had Empire Day. A rather patriotic event that schools did. Again dressing up, probably involved making decorations. That's long gone. Harvest Festival was once celebrated in a much bigger way.
People like to celebrate things. People like to make their homes pretty with decorations or even just flowers. People like to eat.
I agree there is a lot of cheap, poor quality merchandise sold but I have noticed (even before covid) that there is a lot less sold than there was because consumers aren't buying so much and/or re using products over several years as the environmental impact is more understood. In a few years time we might find the popularity of these products is quite low and the trend changes again and it's back to painting eggs and daffodils made from crêpe paper.
Who knows? But life should be full of celebrations and fun - anything that you find you don't find fun and has become a chore...then it's time to change what and how you celebrate.
"You do you" is the cheesy phrase out there these days. But it's true. If someone wants to make a giant day out of Easter - as long as they are enjoying it - let them get on with it.
Sorry that's a bit rambling. I am currently staring at my Easter Gonks and feeling sad I will have to put them away....maybe I will make them a maypole to dance around.

It's just nice to do things and make traditions. We have an Easter tree and an egg hunt. The tree is a white stick thingy from Hobbycraft and the kids do crafts in the run up to decorate it. We go to church after the egg hunt then have a spring themed three course late lunch. It's kind of like Christmas but there are no presents.

I don't buy in to it. Kids get 2 eggs and usually one from grandparents. That's it, apart from having roast lamb.
Same as when I was young.

@Thedogscollar

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 feel like this and I'm 35..Valentine's Day is a joke now too, kids apparently have to receive presents for this also. Good job I'm not on social media! Fuck the lot of it, narcissism at its finest, as if parents weren't under enough pressure as it is

After two fucking shitty years I think a lot of people are wanting to have as much joy as possible.
And chocolate.
As much chocolate as possible. 😁

I saw an Easter Eve box in home bargains

Nice if your parents can afford to buy you all that 'joy', many can't

I don't put any photos on social media but we always find a branch from the park and decorate it with eggs we have painted. Easter egg hunt yes. Church service and nice Easter lunch. I love Easter but not for social media.

A youtuber who I occasionally watch tool her young daughter shopping for a few hundred quids worth of clothes for "Easter" and I was...

It's another symptom of our over consumerism. Kids are never satisfied as nothing is a treat anymore so events get bigger and bigger.

Also makes you appreciate why kids are so chubby when people are having 10+ eggs which really is about 5-6 months worth of chocolate as treats.

Born in the 80s - we always got a small gift from our Nana (like a Barbie) and chocolate eggs from parents, aunts etc. Egg hunts were a thing when db was a child (born 2000). Decorations and wreaths etc weren't something my family did, but it was a given that you had a roast with lamb!

Also Easter crafts like Easter bonnets and egg decorating were absolutely a thing!

I was raised a catholic and I married a catholic European so Easter has always been quite a big thing in our families. Mostly church, cake and chocolate eggs though, never presents and nothing shared on line. I’ve always loved Easter because the days are noticeably longer and spring in here

We had one egg each and an afternoon at the seaside. Fabulous!

I completely agree OP Easter cards, Easter trees, Easter presents etc all make it feel like it's turning into a 2nd Christmas. Just feels like an excuse to encourage people to buy junk they don't need.

I'm in my fifties - grew up with an egg off parents, with my name on, usually just one or two from other rels, a roast dinner (that was weekly anyway) and a new outfit - usually including sandals. Nice memories. No trails. No bunny. No decorations.

My mother in law was telling me about when she was a child (1940s/early 50s) that getting new clothes at Easter was a big deal.
In her case that meant homemade because her mother made their clothes. You would proudly go to church on Easter Sunday wearing your new frock. Really it was probably because Easter comes in spring time and children grow and need new summer clothes - if they didn't celebrate Easter getting new summer clothes would have still happened - but from a modern view people tend to buy new clothes all the time so getting yet more clothes at Easter might seem like another 'thing' that's become part of the overall consumerism but I suppose it does have a historical background of an Easter tradition.

There'll always be some materialistic muppets who go all out for "the gram".

One of the many reasons I don't have social media

Since social media dahling.

My Dc are 21@18 now and just get one chocolate egg. We went to GP’s for a bbq yesterday. No photos were taken.
When they were small my DM would do an egg hunt in her garden and we’d have a Sunday dinner. Same as when I was little in the 70s.

Oh and we’d go to mass but I don’t do that now I’m a heathen.