Cash Will Do

I am sure I’m not the only one that Easter snuck up on. In my mind March is for St. Patrick’s Day and April is for Easter.

For some years now we have tried to do our baskets on Saturday morning, but as of publication there is nothing to go inside them.

Usually my kids get a swimsuit, flip flops, and a summer outfit. However, they are getting more and more opinionated, so I don’t like to buy them clothes without their input. I don’t really want to do any candy because grandmas cover that more than sufficiently. We already have plenty of bubbles and chalk and summer toys in our baseball wagon. Legos are fun for the 15 minutes they are assembling them; then no one knows what to do with the finished projects, and I find pieces all over my house. I was kind of at a loss of what to even put in their baskets.

Luckily, Crew came up with the great idea this year to just get cash. (This was after I squashed his request for the Easter Bunny to bring him a PS4.) I was thrilled with this easy solution and all the kids were on board. We just had two questions:

1. How could we let the Easter Bunny know that the kids preferred cash?
2. Do you have to pay tithing on gift cash? (Haha. Crew was real concerned about this question.)

We still aren’t sure about the tithing issue, but as far as question #1 goes, the kids decided to write a letter to the Easter Bunny.

The letter method worked for our leprechauns this year, so why not for the Easter Bunny? My family was to be gone on St. Patrick’s Day to a baseball tournament. My little 6-year-old was throwing a major fit and didn’t want to go on vacation because he didn’t want to miss the leprechauns. I tried assuring him that leprechauns can visit hotel rooms, but he thought that was stupid. Finely we convinced Locke that the leprechauns would visit when he returned home from vacation. We just needed to ask them to come back at a later date. That logic placated him. Go figure?

We drafted a note and taped it really low on our front door so the tiny leprechauns would see it. We told them we would be back Sunday night and asked if they could wait to destroy our house. The kind leprechauns heeded our request and hit our house Sunday night (March 20) instead of St. Patrick’s Day.

So we trust that our Easter Bunny will help us out as well.

We expect to find cash Easter morning. The fun will be in finding the eggs with different dollar and coin amounts and adding it all up. Then the fun will continue later in the week as the kids get to shop for what they want.

Cash is not my favorite idea. It’s not the most thoughtful or the most helpful or the most inspirational, but it is the easiest. I would much prefer a Christ-centered basket or a basket full of summer items, but sometimes life gets away from you. Sometimes just getting through the day takes so much effort and energy and focus that you forget about anything that isn’t urgent or pressing. Sometimes our minds are so filled with practice schedules and carpool pick-ups and dinner menus that creativity can’t be cultivated. Sometimes holidays take a back seat to every day happenings. So today I’m headed to the bank. Cash will have to do.

Happy Easter!