A few years ago we almost stopped giving the girls chocolate for Easter. I was so sick of the stuff. Mountains of chocolate would be left in our cupboard for weeks afterwards. I would give a huge bag of it to anyone who came round to our house looking hungry in May. Even the girls were beaten into chocolate submission. Easter eggs are like Christmas decorations: fine at the time, but by January you are sick of the sight of them.
Maybe I am just an Easter Scrooge. We had one Easter bonnet that we made when daughter 1 was 4, that did 12 years of Easter hat parades. One year we had a problem, as two daughters were in the same parade. Just share it, I managed to convince them. You wear it up until: Chick, Chick Chicken, lay a little egg for me and then shove it on your sister’s head. That Easter bonnet never won a prize once in all those 12 years. Some of the hats I see now, proudly displayed on Facebook, with captions such as: look at what I made..erm…she made…, look amazing, but they won’t last a day, let alone 12 years. They won’t have the staying power of our…erm I mean their bonnet.
For the past couple of years, we have offered the kids a fiver or an egg. At first, the two younger ones opted for the egg, not wanting to break with tradition. However, last year they worked out that shops pop out pretty decent eggs at a pound a go, so they took the fiver and bought themselves several eggs, thus causing our plan to spectacularly backfire.
This Easter we are in a tent. Everyone who asks if we are going on holiday, as they wave their ski poles in our faces, says: oh no! when I mention the tent. It’s a posh tent, I add, we’re glamping. But I can see it in their eyes, they are thinking: no amount of posh can stop it pissing down.
So, this Easter I think we will break with tradition and we shall take chocolate to the tent. I feel that we need to feed our addictions this weekend, rather than shun them. We will pack our knackered old bus full of chocolate and wine and peanut butter. Peanut butter is partner’s addiction. He drove via Waitrose last night after work, because he had none for the morning. They only had organic, he tells me. He opens it and sniffs it, like one might a fine wine. Does it taste any different? I ask him. Oh yes, he tells me, as if I have asked whether Blossom Hill tastes different to claret. It tastes like a real monkey nut. I’m not convinced, but he shall have his peanut butter and the girls shall have their chocolate. I shall sit in our tent, clutching a glass of wine, watching the rain pissing on the fire pit, feeling like a real Easter Scrooge.