An Egg-celent Adventure In The Bag

I know this is a bit late for an Easter posting, but an important reader insisted I share this exchange from a few weekends ago:

“You’ve got to get baskets,” my mother said with a worried frown, as I prepared for a small get-together. “It’s Easter.”

“Easter-shmeister,” I thought sullenly. I mean, hello? Twenty more dollars for fake wicker baskets and translucent Chinese grass? What about real grass from right outside my door? Honestly, it would have caused me physical pain to buy holiday-themed items before the actual holiday (they were going to be 75 percent off in a few days).

“It’ll be fine, Mom,” I said. “We’ve got lunch bags.” I pointed to the package of Randall’s  “Value Red” brand, whose bags are actually brown. My mother’s frown deepened, suggesting I had sunken to new lows.

In truth, I felt proud of myself. I had just organized Big Girl’s art supplies into jars. I had unearthed a stamp collection, paint brushes, some stickers and stencils. Husband and Big Girl had already dyed two dozen eggs. And I had borrowed a neighbor’s bag of empty plastic eggs, which I had filled with a couple of puzzle erasers and some chocolates in sparkly wrappers. I was reducing, reusing and RECYCLING.

Yet as good as my preparations were, it turns out we were both kind of right.

In my column: The children enjoyed decorating their lunch-sack Easter baskets. They glittered them. They stickered them. They stamped letters on them. For a full forty-five minutes, there was quiet, happy working going on in my home.

In my mother’s column: As Easter baskets, the bags were pretty wack. When a critical egg mass was attained, many got ripped, especially during the mad scramble. And after all the candy was consumed, most of these original art pieces were left crumpled up and tossed on the ground like dead carcasses along the highway.

Yeah, my mom may have been right. But at least I didn’t buy more unneeded stuff to clutter up our 850-square-foot apartment. That is, not until the post-holiday sale.