Creative Easter Egg Hunt: Clean the House

Rather than giving us a big Easter basket full of tons of Easter bunnies and eggs, my parents would set up Easter egg hunts for us, which dragged the excitement out longer, and in the end, we didn't end up with quite as much chocolate as other kids might. When I was a kid, my father was in charge of hiding our Easter eggs the night before Easter. He always made the hunt extra-special by coming up with creative ideas to add to the fun.

His favorite was to make little Easter bunny "footprints" using flour on the carpet. We had a dark carpet, so these showed up well, and they were easy to vacuum up later.

Then, he would make a trail of clues for us to find. One year, all of his clues were based on trying to get us to clean the house. So the first one might read "clean the windows" and we would find eggs on the windowsills. I'm not sure we actually completed the task of cleaning the windows before we followed our next clue, also found in the windowsill!

Off we would go to "clean the car," "tidy the basement" and "wash the dishes," finding Easter eggs along the way.

In the end, rather than a huge Easter basket, we would get a special Easter treat, like a big chocolate bunny. I think that doing things this way made that one chocolate bunny seem a lot more exciting than friends of ours who got a whole big basket filled with giant bunnies without having to do anything to get it.

It's more work for the parents, of course, but it's only one day and makes much more lasting and special Easter memories for kids.

You can vary some of the tricks used here. For example, if you're worried about not being able to clean "bunny footprints" off of your carpet, you could make footprints on easier to clean surfaces, like linoleum or hardwood flooring, if you have it. You could also add a couple outside on your driveway with chalk. You only need a couple here and there to excite children's imaginations.

To make the "footprints" you could cut out a paw-like shape from a piece of paper, and then use it as a stencil to sprinkle flour or dirt with, so that the prints will all look the same size and shape.

Happy Easter and Happy Hunting!