IT’S TOO MUCH!

A fed-up Kate has a message for the Easter Bunny

I’m always shocked at how early the Easter eggs start hitting the supermarket shelves. It feels like we still have the chocolate Santas, and the endless boxes of scorched almonds and Favourites from Christmas still in the fridge, when boom, in come the Easter eggs. I swear it’s getting earlier and earlier.

I never mind seeing a hot cross bun early – I’m a fan of those being available all year round, quite frankly. That doughy, cinnamony, raisiny goodness is welcome in my kitchen any time! But the Easter-egg thing seems OTT. Each year, they are bigger and more bedazzled with stuff.

The egg-sized eggs we had in our childhood now seem to have been upsized to such a grand scale, they’re enormous. They resemble a bicycle helmet more than an egg! They look like they need more than two hands to carry them, let alone get little mouths around them. Inevitably, they’re broken into a thousand pieces to consume and once the sickly sweetness of that much chocolate has wiped out your child, the leftovers just lie around melting and looking tragic.

So this year, I’ve decided against the upsizing of Easter. I’ve long been a fan of the little round eggs anyway, colourfully wrapped and easy to hide, easy to open and easy to eat! Also easy to slip into a lunchbox as a small treat occasionally (lunchbox police, please avert your gazes at this point).

Even then, it’s a quandary. So many different varieties of little eggs. There’s every flavour in the book now. I think there’s a market amid the bulging aisles of huge Easter eggs to have a display called “Classic” with plain Dairy Milk chocolate basic eggs. Or would that be just me purchasing those? I don’t know about you, but if I want a Perky Nana or a bag of M&Ms, I’d rather buy that product than eat a giant Easter egg flavoured with Perky Nana. I mean, what’s the point?

My husband is another old-fashioned soul like me. He loves your classic marshmallow egg. The ones with the orange yolk-looking bit in the middle. Best eaten out of the fridge so they’re cold and chewy, he claims. So this year, our Easter Bunny got the memo to please avoid any large basketball-size eggs and just bring us your humble, classic, little ones, thank you very much.

It seems the memo was received by everyone bar the grandparents. They’re a law unto themselves anyway, grandparents, aren’t they? Before Easter had even arrived, my daughter’s arms were laden down with enormous multi-coloured, multi-flavoured eggs in special bright boxes. What can you do?

I knew exactly what to do. I decided I’d have to reissue a new memo to our Easter Bunny to bring us barely any eggs at all, given the children were already smothered in chocolate and it wasn’t even Good Friday yet.

Am I the Grinch of Easter? Possibly, but if you’re reading this, Easter Bunny, please note, the restrictions do not apply to hot cross buns.