For someone like me who has a serious sugar addiction, major holidays mean major problems. Some holidays aren’t so bad: St. Patrick’s Day is all about the booze, Fourth of July is all about the burgers, and Presidents Day is all about mattress sales. The big three for sugar junkies are Christmas, Halloween and Easter.
Here we go again.
When our kids were little, my Easter bunny process went like this:
- Buy supplies at least a week early so I don’t end up at the store the night before with empty shelves devoid of all but a few overpriced and/or inferior candy selections.
- Eat all the supplies.
- End up at the store the night before with empty shelves devoid of all but a few overpriced and/or inferior candy selections.
- Pin the checkout girl to an end-cap with my forearm across her throat screaming, “What do you MEAN you’re out of Cadbury Crème Eggs? I GOT to HAVE those EGGS! Go to the back room and find me some #&^%$ eggs!!!”
- Dash out of the store with my second-rate purchases before the police arrive.
- After the kids go to bed, bring out their baskets and plastic eggs and distribute the candy:
- One solid, milk chocolate bunny for Lizzy’s basket
- One solid, milk chocolate bunny for Gwennie’s basket
- One solid, milk chocolate bunny for Mommy
- A handful of jelly beans for Lizzy’s basket
- A handful of jelly beans for Gwennie’s basket
- A handful of jelly beans for each of the plastic eggs
- A handful of jelly beans for Mommy
- Repeat with all available candy items
- Hide the baskets and eggs around the house while consuming half a bag of Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups in the pastel, foil wrappers.
- Wake up early to witness the children’s delight as they hunt for their baskets and eggs before church. Except I usually missed this part because I was in the bathroom with morning-after digestive problems and a killer, sugar hangover.
The kids are out of the house now. I still want to mark the occasion by making baskets for them, but now I do Easter Priority Mail Boxes. I’ve gotten a little smarter about the process and have set some rules for myself to avoid a sugar overdose.
- Buy the candy the night before I plan to ship it.
- Leave the goods in the car. Do not, for God’s sake, DO NOT BRING THE CANDY INTO THE HOUSE!
- Make the boxes up at my office where I’m less likely to lose control.
- If I eat a couple of jelly beans in the process, that’s OK.
- If I bite the head off of a chocolate bunny, I have gone too far. Do NOT mail that one.
- Ship every piece of candy (except those with teeth marks) and do NOT keep any around the house or office.
- Do NOT go to the store next Monday to stock up on ½ price clearance Easter candy. That’s not fooling anybody.
I got the Easter Priority Mail Boxes out yesterday, and I’m sure my girls will be touched. I wish I could see the look on their faces when they open them on Easter morning, but we live too far away now. Besides, after church I will be busy enjoying my new favorite treat since I’ve tamed the sugar addiction – Bloody Marys.
I was talking about my problem with Easter candy with my sister Libby, and she’s the one who said the line that inspired this post and became the title. I ’bout spewed coffee out my nose.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
Looks like you’ve got the process down to an art. Here’s hoping all the chocolate bunnies retain their heads. Then again, no one could fault you if they don’t…
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“Off with their heads!” has a whole, different connotation around my house, Carrie.
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Haha! That is funny!
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Hahahah! I can see you stealing yourself to try and avoid temptation.
I managed to get out of the store with just one bag of jelly beans, at least so far…..
Happy Easter, dear Peg. Looks like my road trip will have to be this summer. 😦
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I forgot Rule #2, Tar. It wasn’t pleasant.
What are you and Pat doing this weekend? Carolyn is road tripping to see us – yahoo! Hope you have a blessed, fabulous Easter, my sista.
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I hear you, Peg. It ain’t pretty. And come to think of it, neither am I anymore — there is a chocolate bunny head in each side of my pants, and jelly beans strewn haphazardly under my skin …
(Actually, I have solved my life-long candy addiction. I gave it up cold turkey. Because candy is like those potato chips — you can’t have just one. This year, I caved and bought myself a package of peeps — ate the whole thing and felt awful. No more peeps for this girl. It’s the end of life as we know it. Am I gorgeous again yet?)
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Ain’t that the truth! I’ve been TRYing to give it up cold turkey. I had a scare after a binge a couple of weeks ago, where I felt really funky and ill – I think it might have been my blood sugar. Fell of the wagon Monday night when I forgot Rule #2, but I’m back in the saddle. Sometimes I wish I were addicted to crack; it would be easier to beat.
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And you’d get much more sympathy. Sucks.
It took me 4 times for cold turkey to work. And yesterday I had a tiny 3Musketeers bar and have no interest in another. So I’m hopeful.
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Bah, I just give in to this addiction. As long as my two-seater-couch holds my ass (and my two cats) all is well 😉
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It’s Easter?!? Already?!? Man, I need to get to the store!
(I do the same thing for Superbowl, too – -… just saying….)
LOL – as always, a great read and love your take on things!
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Hurry! They’re practically down to the generic jelly beans! (Thanks)
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Too late – did my once a month shopping trip last weekend – so a handfull of gummy bears and some $1 bills it is – LOL – I would worry about being a terrible mom, except my kids are used to my insanity! LOL (I still miss the hard candy shell, inside mallow cream eggs – can’t find them anywhere and the only thing my mom mentions as wanting for the past few years – – 🙂
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Downright hilarious! At least you aren’t addicted to those “peeps” eewwww! They always tasted like expandable gooey sugary sponges and they doubled in size in your stomach, a pertinent fact omitted on the packaging.
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Those are possibly the only sweets I DON’T like. I bought a bunch this year to send so I wouldn’t be tempted.
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Yep, that’s the way to do it…..buy only the candy you don’t like. Of course, when I was much younger they hadn’t made that type of candy yet. lol
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There aren’t many sorts of candy I do not like …
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Me too.
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I’m always somewhat amazed by the spell chocolate casts over so many people. Vodka on the other hand…
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How about those little cups made of chocolate and filled with liquor?
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That’s a whole different subject.
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I do love chocolate vodka…I can multitask!!!
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My favorite is vodka-flavored vodka, but it’s hard to find in stores these days.
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Ain’t that the truth. I’m waiting for steak andvodka, which I will
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Jeez I hate this phone. That would be steak and potato flavored vodka so I can dispense with the actual eating and stick with drinking my nutrients
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Sounds like Willie Wonka’s roast beef dinner gum. Except better because, you know, vodka.
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You maverick.
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Sounds good to me.
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You lot know that alcohol per 100 g has more calories than chocolates?
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I do know that and was just telling my high school students that the other day. However, it is much easier to “replace” the vodka you swipe from Mommy’s hidden stash than it is to fashion a fake head for the bunny you taste-tested. Not that I ever did either.
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Poor Mommy worried that she was becoming a hardened alcoholic because shots of straight vodka didn’t even faze her anymore. Little did she know that half the bottle was water.
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Which was unfortunate because had she been drunk she wouldn’t have even noticed the “replacement” bunny head made out of Ex-Lax.
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Ouch. That’s just wrong.
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Reblogged this on The Coffee Crazed Bookworm and commented:
Oh god, I’m trying not to think about the bag of Hershey’s Miniature’s in my room that I bought and nobody knows about. MUST NOT EAT
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I won’t tell anyone about that bag, but the price of my silence is half.
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Not gonna happen, I’ll fend everybody off with my chocolate Benedict Cumberbatch head
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*wipes of chocolate bits from computer* I had a choc bunny given to me today. By my friend. I didn’t give her any… I eated half of it already
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Hate to tell you this, but I’m going to any (for your own good)…alcohol metabolizes into sugar. You’re still sunk, Girlfriend. Happy Easter!
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Noooooooo!
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Oh yeah!
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I don’t believe it. Alcohol is what they use in Bunsen burners, ergo, it burns easily, ipso facto, you burn it off with a brisk walk around the room.
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It burns so well, because it HAS so many calories … *sigh, trying to explain about calorie and how that is defined – and giving up, as I am far too lazy to look it up*
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Yes, you might as well give up. I remember that stuff from high school chemistry, but it doesn’t apply here.
If you have learned nothing else about me, you should know by now that I believe what I WANT to believe.
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Believe what you want – that is what religious freedom is for.
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Yesssssssss!
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I thought I was safe from temptation once my kids left home. I can’t really eat chocolate because it irritates my digestion, so I don’t buy it. But wouldn’t you know it – the local Target had all my favorite Easter varieties in WHITE chocolate! I can eat that!
I stocked up for an entire year, because you know, they only make certain varieties for Easter.
My kids aren’t getting any of it. Well, unless I die from sugar overdose, and they inherit my stash.
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If I stocked up for the year, Websters would have to redefine “year” to: a period of time marked by the passage of approx. 3 hours.
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This is hilarious! Or maybe not, because your rituals sound so very familiar! 🙂
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Nice to know I’m not alone here.
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You are stronger than I am if you’re able to stay away from the discounted candy on Monday.
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I’m going to have myself tied to a chair
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https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/s526x395/10303782_806889106006718_6625682491895926952_n.jpg?oh=20529ca1296d12215a5b3991982ca9f3&oe=55AFDE20&__gda__=1436508432_ab2bde83420db29529b1299543df63db
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Haha! Lovely.
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Lol
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😉
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So relate to this – I bought two Lindt chocolate bunnies and hid them in the top shelf of the closet. I had an empty house yesterday and needed inspiration to write (my excuse), so I bit into one rabbit (head first), then the other one! (It looked lonely) I felt so guilty and will have to buy them again this weekend. Love this post 🙂
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For goodness sake , put the poor creatures out of their misery! They eat bunnies, don’t they?
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Peg, thanks for the headless chocolate bunnies nod… I mean, it’d be wayyyy tacky to repackage and mail / give these items to loved ones. You could, however, give out candy bunnies with bitten-off arms and feet – this is not as offensive.
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Or could I just send the arms and feet and eat the rest?
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… and, in case you were already planning this… I do NOT want you to send Carolyn back to B.C. with headless chocolate critters for me!! 🙂
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Dang! You read me like a book.
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… do bunnies have arms???
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You just blew my mind.
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Take another puff… er, each another arm! 🙂
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EAT another arm, I meant to type! 🙂
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I’ll say ,”Lib told me to!”
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that is the best title ever! well done!
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Thanks! It was pretty funny when Lib solemnly told me that.
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Peg get help before its too late. Admitting you have a problem with the chocolate bunnies is the first step to getting better.
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There has to be a 12-step group for this, right?
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Yes I think so—a dozen chocolate bunnies. ;O)
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I was smart this year. I hid all my kids Easter stuff at grandma’s house! No enticing chocolate bunnies, yellow peeps or fruity beans tempting me all week!
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You have a will of iron, LM. I don’t know that I would trust grandma though. Just sayin’.
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Oh, that’s just terrible! How awful for you!
Of course, I have NO IDEA what it’s like to be addicted to chocolate. I have zero temptation this time of year. Reese PB eggs? Pfffft. Don’t need ’em in my life. Nope.
Um…. excuse me… I’ll be right back… I’ve got to go um…. exercise. Yeah, that’s right. Exercise.
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Must have been one heck of a workout, Peter Darlatail. You’ve got brown sweat all around your mouth.
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Oh, Peg! This was so hilarious and so right on! Every single word of this post spoke to me and described my actions to a T. Even the priority boxes that I sent to my two who are in college was so right on except that I made the mistake of doing it from home and I had bathroom issues soon after. 🙂
It will be the first Easter without any of my babies home! 😦 😦 I will have to drown my sorrows in bloody marys as well! Feliz Easter to you! 🙂
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The first holidays are rough. Actually, all of them are. 😦 Sending good thoughts and mental bloody marys your way.
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Is now a good time to tell you that Easter chocolate, in rabbit form and every other form you can imagine, is big in Italy? Big as in HUGE. Big as in ENORMOUS. Big as in XXXX-LARGE.
And so far I haven’t had any. Nope. Not me. No heads missing from these bunnies.
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Really? I wouldn’t have guessed that. You must have a will of iron to avoid all that luscious, Italian chocolate. Or would it be Swiss because you’re right next door?
The one time we went to Italy we had a 20 minute layover in Zurich. I told my hubby to keep the plane on the ground by force, if necessary, while I dashed into the airport duty free shop for some Swiss chocolate. Extreme reaction? Nope.
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Everyone knows that you double up on bags of candy: One for them, one for you.
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You speak with the wisdom of a venerable crone.
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Thanks, I think?
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If I may paraphrase from an American icon and mid western sage, Will Rogers…..”I never met a chocolate bunny head I didn’t like.”
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…or feet, or torso: it’s all good.
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It’s a long haul from Easter to Halloween. You’ll need a 6-month supply of candy to keep your blood sugar on an even keel. Stock up at those 1/2 price after-Easter sales and say the bunny made you do it.
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Yeah, that doesn’t work so great for me. 6 months magically becomes 3 days and I’m passed out in a sugar coma.
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Happy Easter, Peg!! Your sweetness to your daughters beats any chocolate bunny, especially the crappy ones I’ve tasted over the years (just the ears, as your sis said the head is going too far). May your blogging heart be filled with the joy only baskets of sappy comments can bring. 🐇❤️🐣
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Aw, thanks for lifting my day. Happy Easter to you!
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I’m right there with you on the sugar addiction. I don’t have any candy in the house, but there is a jar of Nutella in my kitchen cabinet…
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Oh, nooooooo!
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It’s, um, no longer a problem.
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That’s my favorite method of dealing with food temptations – get rid of them, personally.
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I haven’t had a chocolate bunny to bite off the ears in a long, long time. The ears always go first. Then the bunny can’t hear me eating the rest of it. I’d have shipped those packages to my house.
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