The Apartment Dweller’s Guide to Hosting Easter

If you grew up in a house, you may be used to certain Easter activities taking place outside. Perhaps you had Easter egg hunts in your backyard with your friends or cousins. You may have had snacks out there, or played games. Now that you have kids, you want them to enjoy Easter as much as you did.

Fortunately, hosting Easter in an apartment doesn’t have to be much different. Let’s cover various Easter activities, and how to handle the outdoor part.

Egg Dying

Dying eggs—the very eggs you’ll hide for your egg hunt later—is a great activity for one or two adults to do with the kids. Easter egg dying and decorating is easy. There are plenty of kits on the market, which you’ll find in your local grocery store, or you can make your own dyes.

You can use crayons and stickers for additional effects. For example, if you draw or write on a boiled egg with a white crayon and then dye it, the part you wrote on remains clear, showing the message or image. This can be a really fun activity for the kids.

Baskets

While the eggs are drying, bring out the Easter baskets. Children love Easter baskets like they love Christmas stockings and presents. You can fill the baskets with Easter chocolates, like chocolate eggs and a chocolate rabbit. Small presents are also nice, perhaps coloring books and crayons, or small things that each specific child enjoys, like Rubik's cubes, fidget spinners, or paperback books.

Consider having baskets for the adults as well, if you can afford it. You may even want to work out a system whereby all the adults chip in for all the baskets. However you handle it, for the adults, simply think about what they like. Most of us still enjoy chocolate. Champagne or a craft beer would be a nice surprise too.

Easter Egg Hunt

After fifteen minutes or so, the easter eggs should be dry and ready to be found! Easter egg hunts are more fun outdoors. If you have a safe, shared area in your apartment complex (not around a swimming pool), with flowers, bushes, and trees, consider having the Easter egg hunt there.

Another great option for apartment dwellers is to go to a nearby park. Kids love playing in the park, and Easter makes a good excuse to go for an hour or two. Besides, it will help them burn off some of the sugar they’ll have eaten in their candy, and build up an appetite for dinner.

Either way, have a few of the adults hide the eggs before other adults bring the children. The adults then let the children hunt for eggs, make sure the kids are safe, and, if toward the end the kids haven’t found them all, the adults help uncover them.

Once the kids have found all the eggs, they can play in the park awhile, with the adults watching them and socializing. This is a great time for friends and cousins to have fun together, and for the adults to catch up.

Cooking

Someone needs to stay home to prepare dinner. We suggest you have a helper, perhaps another one of the adults, or maybe a teen child who would rather help at the apartment than search for eggs with the children.

Traditional Christian Easter dinner fare is lamb, however, ham, roast beef, and turkey all make for great dinners.

Just allow enough time for prep and cooking. You may even want to get some of the prep done the night before.

Additional Activities

By the time the kids get home, dinner might not be ready. See what the kids feel like doing. They might just want to watch a movie, so now’s a good time to put on a good animated feature. They might want to play video games for a bit, if you have a game system.

You could also offer additional activities for them to do. They might want to color in those coloring books they received in their baskets. Alternately, you could print up some coloring pages. A search for “Easter coloring pages” on Google will turn up plenty.

If you want to stay in the spirit of Easter, you can also search for and print seasonal puzzles, cards, and the like.

Dinner

If you’re hosting a big Easter get-together, make sure you have enough tables and chairs. This is where the traditional “kids’ table” comes in, usually a folding table where the kids all sit so the adults can fit at the main table. You may want to have some folding chairs. If one of your guests has folding chairs, you could also ask them to bring some.

After dinner, have everyone pitch in to put the food away and clean the dishes. That way you, the host, can enjoy everyone’s company after that’s done, until everyone is ready to go home. By the end of the evening, everyone should have had a fun day and be ready to get a good night’s sleep.

We hope this guide gives you some ideas on how to have a great Easter celebration this year in your apartment.