We’ve been sharing some of our favorite Easter traditions and recipes with you the last few days and thought it would be good to give you some tips to help plan your Easter Gathering.
Hosting an Easter Gathering shouldn’t be stressful, it’s a time to get together with friends and family, celebrate the Spring weather. So plan the menu well ahead of time, whether it’s a traditional sit down dinner with an Easter Ham and all the fixins’ or an easy buffet for a casual crowd.
Easter Table Settings
Last week during Spring Week on Hoosier Homemade, Kellie from Nest of Posies shared this adorable Easter Table Setting. It’s simple, colorful and fun. Gather some scrapbook paper and punches and let the kids have fun.
And Charlotte, from The Paper Cupcake designed Easter Printables that were perfect on Kellie’s table. If you are looking to set your table with a few of your Easter dishes…
To keep it simple, we often set the Buffet with food and let everyone help themselves. Be sure to have an area for Dessert…you will want plenty of that.
Make Ahead Recipes for Easter
Another way to keep it simple is to host a potluck, assign dishes to your guests or let them choose what to bring. Here are a few recipes that you may enjoy that can be made up ahead to free up your time on the holiday…
- Easter Brunch with Amish Casserole, Orange Cranberry Muffins, Fruit Salad and Sunrise Punch
- Sausage Casserole
- Make Ahead Coffee Cake
- Ham and Broccoli Quiche
- Hashbrown Potato Casserole
- Honey Lime Fruit Salad
- Easy Strawberry Pie
Fun for the Kids
Plan some fun activities for the kids and adults. These Easter Basket Crafts are sure to please your guests. And an Easter egg hunt is always fun, here’s some twists on the traditional hunt.
- If you have a small number of kids fill an Easter basket for each one with their favorite goodies and hide. The look on their faces when they find the bounty is almost as good as Christmas morning.
- Color code the eggs and assign a color to each kid, this will allow you to hide the older kids eggs in more difficult locations and still give the little ones the joy of the hunt, of course fill the eggs with identical items so everyone get the same amount. After everyone has found their eggs they can sort through and trade items between one another.
- Egg Races are always fun for the kids and adults…place an egg on a spoon, and race to the finish line, first person there without breaking their egg wins.
- And our family favorite…Dyeing Easter Eggs, which we usually do on Saturday night before Easter. Even though our boys are teens, they still love it…it’s a tradition!
And sure to be a hit with everyone…Peeps Fondue! YUM!
Keep it Simple
But don’t overload the schedule, give you and your guests plenty of time to socialize with one another. It’s a great way to reconnect with old friends and distant family members. One of my fondest memories is when I met Liz’s family for the first time when she had invited me to Easter dinner and as her father would say (my soon to be father-in-law) shoot the s*** with everyone. We would do this for many years and shared alot of thoughts and advice with one another over the years since. He passed away several years ago and I miss the times we shared together.
