I love getting out to local Easter events and we usually try to visit an Easter trail or two each year in the run up to Easter. They are a great excuse to get fresh air and motivate the children to go on a walk, even if it's a bit chilly outside. My absolute favourite Easter tradition though is our annual Easter egg hunt so I wanted to share how we organise this at home.

I have found that hosting your own hunt is much more relaxing than fighting the crowds at a public event during Easter weekend. It is a lovely way to spend a slow morning together before the chocolate-induced chaos truly begins.

Working together to find the hidden eggs

How To Organise An Easter Egg Hunt At Home

What Day Should You Have Your Easter Egg Hunt?

We always have our Easter Egg Hunts on Easter Sunday. It is the traditional day and marks the end of Lent. While I am not particularly religious myself, I do enjoy keeping up with traditions. I have noticed more people on social media tucking into their eggs on Good Friday lately, but for us, Sunday feels like the right time for the big reveal.

This is an interesting article about Easter Egg Hunts; Queen Victoria used to organise hunts for her children on Maundy Thursday, so if you are feeling impatient, you are technically following a royal tradition. Ultimately, the best time is whenever works for your family schedule.

We always have our egg hunt in the morning for the simple reason that it gives my children more time to eat the chocolate and sweets before bedtime. Easter Sunday is the one day of the year I let my children go crazy and they are allowed to eat as many of their treats as they want. We find they have an initial binge then mostly ignore them for the rest of the day and it saves us nagging them all day.

Where To Have Your Easter Egg Hunt

If we are at home, we usually head into the garden, assuming the British weather behaves itself. If it is raining, an indoor hunt is just as fun. Last year, we were staying in a caravan and the children had a brilliant time hunting eggs behind cushions and under the table. Having it in your own space means you don't have to worry about other people accidentally finding your hidden treasures.

How To Organise your Easter Egg Hunt

The simplest way is to hide the eggs while the children are busy with something else. Giving them some Easter crafts like these or these to work on is a great way to keep them distracted.  

If you want to make it last a bit longer (and you don't want your house ransacked while looking for the treats), you could try a treasure hunt with clues. Each hiding spot holds a clue to the next one, leading to a big prize at the end. This works particularly well for teenagers who might find a standard hunt a bit too easy. 

We normally have a combination of eggs, chocolate, sweets and Easter themed treats as part of our Easter egg hunt. Several years ago I bought lots of plastic fillable eggs. Lots of shops sell them in the run up to Easter, but the size and quality vary so buy carefully. 

I put small treats (like mini bags of Haribo or stickers) inside the eggs, If we have some small treats (eg the mini bags of Haribos or some Easter stickers) I put them inside the plastic eggs, but for larger items, I just pop a little note inside the egg. Once they have found them all, they can "trade" their notes for the actual prizes from a big box.

Whether inside or out I get my partner to ensure the children are distracted while I hide the eggs.  You could hide them overnight, but I suspect this would encourage my children to wake up even earlier than normal to find them. It's also a bit risky leaving them outside too far in advance in case they get found by animals.  

Avoiding The Sibling Squabbles

To keep things fair, I make sure everyone has the same number of treats. To stop the older ones from clearing the lot before the younger ones have even started, I assign a specific colour of egg to each child.

My son might be looking for green and orange eggs, while my daughter looks for blue and yellow. This encourages them to work as a team because if they find an egg that isn't their colour, they point it out to their sibling instead of grabbing it. It makes for a much more peaceful morning.

Pro tip: make sure you count the eggs before hiding them so you can check they have all been found. You don’t want to find long forgotten chocolate in the Summer!

We use the same plastic eggs every year to hide treats in and messages

Ready, Steady, Go

When the eggs are all hidden my children don their Easter Bonnets (the year's we have made them) or Rabbit ears, grab a basket and I send them off to find the eggs. If you don't have baskets then Easter bags (buy them cheap in Home Bargains or ard Factory) work just as well and store flat for next year. 

Enjoying the treats after the Easter Egg Hunt

A Note on The Easter Bunny

The Easter bunny is a strange one for me. The Easter Bunny wasn't really a thing when I was growing up, so I never officially introduced the idea. However, my children inevitably picked it up from, nursery and TV. I don't go out of my way to deny it, but I am quite open about the fact that I'm the one doing the hiding.  If you want to give the Easter bunny credit for providing the Easter gifts then you'll need a bigger distraction (or a giant rabbit suit) while you hide the eggs.

AD-Gifted NOMO Cookie Dough and Choc Fudge bunnies

Allergy Friendly Easter Treats

I have been buying dairy free Easter eggs for over 10 years now and the choice has improved so much. If you are vegan or need treats safe for those with the most common allergies there is now a great choice for both adults and children in most supermarkets, but they can sell out quickly. 

I find some allergy friendly chocolate overly sweet and some doesn't melt quite right, so my go to brand year after year is NOMO. Their chocolate is vegan and free from dairy, gluten, eggs and nuts, but it tastes just as good as standard milk chocolate. My children and I both love it. 

As an affiliate NOMO has sent me products over the years to try, but we also buy lots of it each year, often direct which works out well for bulk purchases. You can buy direct from NOMO by clicking here and save money using one of my discount codes:

• VEGAN10 - Get's you a 10% discount
• SAVE20 - Saves you 20% if you spend over £50 (you also get free shipping)

NOMO items are also widely available from supermarkets and shops including: Ocado, Amazon, Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, ASDA and Holland & Barrett. These are a good option when they have offers on or if you just want to buy one bar to try it.