Easter has just passed us by already. I was asked by various people to write a blog on how to survive Easter as a fructose-free minimalist. Even the most stoic of clutter-phobic, sugar quitters struggle at Easter. There is a distinct lack of fructose-free Easter eggs for sale. Believe me, I have looked. You can buy Easter eggs that are organic, fair-trade, vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free. BUT they are all FULL of organic, vegan sugar. I considered making fructose-free eggs for the kids. What I found is that making chocolate is fairly expensive ($15 for 250g of cacao butter) and time consuming. I would have to purchase egg moulds (which goes against my "no buying" policy), AND I don't even know how to wrap an egg to make it look half decent to a child. Even if I managed all of the above, I risked spending hours for the kids to take one bite and say "I don't like it". Easter is ruined. There were other kids staying with us in Caloundra as well so I didn't want to screw up their lives too. So I threw caution into the wind. I decided to buy standard Easter eggs. I had the pleasure of going to the supermarket the day before Good Friday (I love a good grapple for the last tub of hummus). The place was FULL of panic buyers. No one wants to be caught out on Good Friday without milk, Jatz and a cheesecake. I found myself getting caught up in the moment and NEARLY bought my kids a Troll movie Easter egg. That stupid Troll egg is the epitome of everything I hate. It is shitty fructose-full "chocolate", with a plastic drink bottle and lunchbox all wrapped up in a ridiculous amount of plastic packaging. Yet I nearly bought TWO of them. NEARLY. I put them down and got the hell out of there with some seed oil free crackers and a bottle of rum from the liquor store next door. Phew. It just goes to show how guilt can cause you to buy shit. The guilt that your kids wont enjoy Easter without these things. So what did we do? We ended up buying a couple of packets of small Easter eggs, hid them in the bushes and unleashed the children. They scrambled to collect them all, ate them in about 3 minutes and then reminded us for the rest of the day why you don't let kids eat chocolate. But that was it! There were only a small amount which were eaten straight away. There were no leftovers. The kids had a ball. The true joy at their age is in the finding, not the eating. I hope and pray that fructose-free Easter eggs are available for purchase next year. Anyway, Easter was not without its other challenges. My 5 year old's school sent a letter home. "Come to the Easter bonnet parade!". It said. The parade is at 9am on a Friday morning (a work day for me). Oh, and by the way, "the Easter bonnets have to be made at home". Excuse my language but what the fuck is an Easter bonnet?, and if you want a throw parade at school that working parents have to get yet more time off for, you better be making that shit at school. After some ferocious googling and phone calls to more experienced mothers, my son and I MacGyvered a bonnet using only what we had in the house. BEHOLD! Fortunately there was a catastrophic rain event on the last day of school which caused the Easter bonnet parade to be cancelled so I thought this piece of shit would never see the light of day. Alas, the teacher asked all of the kids to wear their bonnets on the first day back of term 2. So my son wore this hat on Tuesday with a look of pride while I hid in the corner of the classroom pretending to be someone else's mum. Some of the other bonnets wouldn't have looked out of place in the Birdcage at the Melbourne Cup. I kid you not. I quizzed another Dad about his daughters elaborate million-dollar hat. He confessed that the hat had been made a decade ago and has been pulled out (of a hat box!) for EVERY Easter bonnet parade for ALL THREE of his children. You may not know this about me but I HATE craft. So a decade of no Easter craft sounds good to me. I will be doing this next year. I appreciate that Easter is an impossible time when you are the parents and parents in-law of a fructose-free minimalist (me). What do you buy your grandchildren for Easter when their mother doesn't like sugar or plastic shit? As you can see, we didn't come out completely unscathed. Both grandparents bought the kids little toys. I didn't get upset with them. I appreciate them not buying the kids humongous Easter eggs or overindulgent toys. They just bought them one little thing each. Both boys have slept with these toys every night since they received them. I have seen first hand how when you are given less, you really appreciate what you are given. **The humongous Easter egg was probably done in private along with a granny pact never to tell mummy.** So there you have it. Easter was not completely fructose-free, and it wasn't completely minimalist. I am confident that we did a hell of a lot better than last year. Last year, the kids got so sick of the volume of chocolate that they were just unwrapping eggs and throwing them on my cousin's rug. Hopefully next year, we can do better again. **If you are a multi-million dollar chocolate corporation reading this, I see a gap in the market for fructose-free eggs** How did your Easter go? Did you make your own eggs? Did you find any fructose-free eggs in the shops? Share your secrets.
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