Easter eve at Walmart

[cynatnite]

Okay, so I do a midnight run to Walmart. Before I get tomatoes thrown at me, it's what we can afford. :P

The only celebrating we do at easter is the eggs, candy and toy...oh, and a basket, too. That's it. Since we spend very little on the holiday, I always go the night before and pick through what's left. The kid got bubbles to play outside with.

Before, at Walmart, there were rows of those big obnoxious baskets with what we call 'dollar general' toys. They're wrapped in plastic. They were on top of the freezers, in the aisles, toy section and just about anywhere they had space.

Tonight when I get there, I saw maybe a dozen left.

Who in the blue blazes would buy this crap? Seriously. These things are made up of nothing but junk and they charge anywhere from $15 to $30. The bigger the basket, the more it cost. We put our son's together on less than ten bucks and it looks ten times better than the junk at Walmart.

I don't get it.

Is this only a Walmart thing because I don't see nearly so much at other stores.

[LA lady]

1. Ha!

Very common around here, I think they're tacky too. They always seem to put crappy candy in them.

I also hate those Halloween costumes with the cheapo plastic masks.

[Emit]

25. I always kinda liked those cheapo plastic masks!

:P Reminds me of my childhood. :)

[hang a left]

2. Well I don't shop at Walmart on principle but.....

I went all over town today to get stuff to make my son's basket. Everything was picked over. Target had nothing. My boy needed a new backpack so I bought one of those to use as the basket. I think I spent more in gas running around to all the drug and dollar stores trying to find goodies than I did on the basket.

I have noticed in the past couple of years though that the stores don't stock as much Easter stuff as they used to. There literally is not any plastic eggs left in town. I will never wait until the last minute again.

[madeline_con]

4. ".. not any plastic eggs left in town ..."

They're all at my inlaws' house.

They must have 100s. What a huge pile! there wasn't enough junk to fill them all, so a cousin had to make a candy run. :puke:

[Emit]

27. LOL! I just found a huge bag of them in my garage!

We didn't dye any eggs this year so I had to go hunt the plastic eggs from the garage to fill with candies (which my SO just delivered from a last minute run to the grocery store). Can't get away without hiding some eggs for the little ones, so this year it's plastic.

[Justice]

43. I could not find plastic eggs either and ended up at Walmart

a place I do not go to on principle. No one else had them. Walmart had two kinds - sports themed ones, eggs that looked liked baseballs, footballs etc. and green ones that looked liked an army jacket.

[madeline_con]

3. "Who in the blue blazes would buy this crap?"

Look around at the shoppers. They're in debt up to their eyeballs (as the guy says), because of all the garbage they think they need.

They find it easier to buy an overpriced piece of crap than to get something the kid wants and put in the same basket with the same grass as last year.

I asked my 11 y.o. if he really needed a chocolate or fuzzy buny, and he said no. I skipped it. He's over the rabbit now.

[cynatnite]

8. That's why we get stuff like bubbles

It's simple and he'll play with it for hours. He goes nuts over the bubble stuff at the store.

He had his basket from a few years ago...a little race car thing that's held up pretty well. We made eggs and threw in some candy. That's it. We spent so little money and he'll have a lot of fun with it.

Grass is outlawed at our house. :evilgrin:

Seriously, I got sick of vacuuming the crap up and finding it in the weirdest of places. Nobody's missed it.

[madeline_con]

11. The fist thing my son said when we saw them was how cheap

they looked. That's why I asked him if he felt like he had to have an Easter basket.

[napi21]

5. It's not only WM. My local supermarket had them too!

I was looking to buy some small stuff for my grandkids, and bought some celophane straw, hersheys eggo, resesses eggs, and marshmallow chicks. I boght each kid a chocolate bunny/car and dyed some eggs. The basket looks great, and the cost was about $7.00.

I cant fault the stores for doing this. Lots of people buy them because they're too lazy to make their own! What the market will bear ya know!

[Sinti]

6. Who in the blue blazes would buy this crap?

I think they're made for people who don't want to take the time, or can't take the time, to create a basket for real. I've seen them in CVS drug stores, as well. Gosh, I miss putting together an Easter basket :( Hope your holiday rocks!

[bumblebee1]

9. My sister buys a few.

She uses them as prizes for the kids who come to her annual Easter egg hunt.

[Skip Intro]

7. Eaasteer Eeeeaaaveee - muuust buuuy stuuffff......

[TreasonousBastard]

10. As an aside, Walgreen's got into trouble...

a couple of years ago when it got boatloads of the baskets from one supplier who put toy guns and hand grenades in them.

For Easter?

It took maybe a week for someone to notice, and then it hit the fan hard :rofl:


The night it hit the local news, I checked out the all-night Walgreen's and mentioned it to the manager (who I know pretty well) and she said she never even noticed (which I believe, what with all the other crap store managers deal with) but figured it was just another bit of the usual corporate stupidity.

By late the next morning, the word was out and all of them were off the shelves.

[madeline_con]

12. "... toy guns and hand grenades ..."

My kid got a fully automatic BB gun for Easter. (plastic BBs) :rofl:

[cynatnite]

14. My son would love that

:rofl:

He got some handheld thing that makes a gazillion bubbles. That's what the package says. Tomorrow we'll find out if it holds up.

[cynatnite]

13. Oh, I got one for you...

This is kind of an easter/christmas thing.

We were letting the kids go to this one church a few years ago. It was close to christmas and they gave the kids decorations for the tree.

You ready for this one?

It was, I kid you not, nails on a string. To hang on the freaking tree.

It took me a month to get over it. They gave nails to symbolize Jesus dying on the cross as christmas decorations for a holiday that celebrates his birth.

:rofl:

I was pissed as hell at first. We never let them go back after that.

Now, I can laugh at how idiotic they were.

[madeline_con]

15. "... nails on a string."

How tacky and cheap! They didn't spring for some glitter or construction paper!!?

[Vexatious Ape]

18. and if you think about it

hand grenades and toy guns in a Easter basket is not to far out of line. One has to start training these good Christian soldiers as soon as possible.

[shadowknows69]

35. I think those will probably make a comeback

n/t

[alittlelark]

16. I haven't been to a W-Mart for 4 years.....

But I have seen crap on the shelves of Walgreens that seems to fit the desription.

[Horse with no Name]

17. I put my Granddaughters together for about $10

But I kind of picked up stuff here and there.
I bought a doll that was clearance for $3.
Some play makeup that was clearanced for .75.
The grass was .25.
The basket was 1.00.
The chocolate bunny was .99
and the egg with candy in it was 2.99.
The plastic eggs were .99.
Most of the stuff came from Big Lots and Kroger.

[hang a left]

21. nice basket grandma!

[Horse with no Name]

26. Thanks!

I thought it turned out kinda nice.:):hug:

[sandnsea]

29. Aw cute

We did a dump truck and put the little round see-thru balls in the back, and just a few candies because our grandson is just 10 months old. He really can't do anything more than suck one for a couple seconds or he'll be on a sugar high for a week. He doesn't get any sugar yet, it'll be interesting.

[Horse with no Name]

30. That will be so fun!

I bet he loves that. Sounds adorable.

[Lorien]

33. That's how my mom would do it too!

she usually saved the baskets and used the same ones year after year, and we almost never had toys, unless she made them.But she hand dyed eggs,made easter cookies and candies, bought a chocolate bunny and jellybeans at woolworth's, and that was about it. We were quite happy with what we received. I'm sure your granddaughters will be too. :-)

[annabanana]

38. wow! .99 for a solid chocolate Russel Stover bunny!

(good price..)

[Bozita]

19. ummm ... just asking, but ... is Easter gonna be the next Christmas?

Will it surpass Halloween?

[muttcats]

20. Funny

I told my kids that those baskets were what the Easter Bunny brings to bad kids.

[hang a left]

22. lol

really those baskets are hideous. I have always made my own.

[Emit]

28. I re-use some nice baskets my sister gave me

Handmade and all. So far, my kids are little enough to not recognize them yet. It'll be a test this year though, especially with my 6 year-old.

[Toucano]

23. Well I'm gonna throw tomatoes anyway.

Wal-Mart's prices come at a very high cost. You can't afford TO shop there!

[1monster]

24. My son has a big project due on Friday. Most of it is done but

the finishing touches are in the works. I realized that I had forgotten the iron on transfers (long story) when I was at Michaels the other day. And since his poster is on green poster board and he's making a green Tee shirt, I thought it might be a nice touch to get some green paper on which to print his report (safely on the computer barring any unexpected crashes).

So we trotted on over to Walmart. Since it was after nine o'clock, there was no where else open that sells what we need.

The parking lot was unexpectedly full. I ran in (had to be home in less than a half an hour, and picked up the four or five things we needed and headed for the check out.

There must have been at least 100 people in the lobby area waiting in long lines for the five or six cash registers that were open.

I decided that there was no way I was going to wait in line to pay for four or five items. The man standing next to me had a couple of big ticket items VCR/DVR and such. He too decided that he didn't need to wait.

I don't doubt that plenty of other people did the same.

Walmart is so cheap they never have enough cashiers on hand. I wonder just how much they lose in sales for not having enough help on hand? It's stupid policy to keep hours down to maximize their profits (while keeping wages artificially low, too).

Dumb clucks.

[stopbush]

31. We have used the same plastic eggs, baskets and fake grass

for the last 4 years.

We fill about 30 plastic eggs with the contents of ONE bag of jelly beans and ONE bag of
chocolate eggs. They get hidden in the yard in the am - or inside if it's wet outside -
and the kids do an egg hunt.

This year we splurged and got both of them a $3.99 chocolate rabbit.

We spent roughly $11 for the both of them. We're lucky - neither of our kids have much
of a sweet tooth. I'll end up tossing most of the candy in a week or so.

[NMMNG]

32. Those baskets are cheesy and hideous

When I went into Target last week I saw a guy tossing several of them into his cart. For the money he was paying for them he could have bought the fixings for real baskets and given the kids nice baskets with good stuff in them. I'm guessing he didn't want to put in the effort to shop for the individual items or to put them together. It's sad really.

[nonconformist]

34. We always make our own baskets too

We always reuse the baskets. A couple of years ago I finally had to buy new baskets, because the ones they've been using since basically birth were starting to fall apart.

We do a small chocolate bunny, a small stuffed animal (they still love them and very much look forward to them!), a coloring or activity book, Whoppers (gotta have Whoppers), and bubbles. This year we also got them each a DVD they've been asking for for the last couple of months. We were going to buy them anyway, so what the hell.

Hubby ran out to the grocery store at 11 something tonight to pick up something and said the Walmart parking lot was PACKED.


edited to add: My in-laws got my kids those ready-made baskets a few years ago. There's hardly anything in them! They're packaged so it appears there is more in them than there really is. I agree it's a huge waste of money... not to mention, extremely impersonal.

[theHandpuppet]

36. Here's a little Easter story for you

My partner and I were at Big Lots on Friday and while waiting at the checkout I started to chat with a young mother behind us in line who was looking rather despondent. She was pushing a cart loaded with toys and one tow-headed toddler, while the other arm grasped onto a full armload of coloring books, crayons, etc.

This young mom initimated that she was really feeling guilty because she could only afford to spend $40 on her child's Easter toys. (She was buying for two for a total of $80. At Big Lots that buys a cartload.) I was rather befuddled by that remark and told her I thought $40 was very generous for a child so small. When I was a kid (many, many moons ago) I said, we didn't even get toys for Easter, just a basket with some candies and colored eggs. She was undeterred, however, saying that when she was a kid she not only got five or six Easter baskets but hundreds of dollars' worth of clothes! She related this as if she was a rotten mother for not being able to do the same for her own child. Well, that pretty much shut me up because at that point I didn't know what else to say to her. Really, her toddler looked barely old enough to walk on her own! What the hell did she care? You could have given that kid a candy bar and a balloon and she would have been just as happy.

Pretty sad that Easter has gone the way of Christmas -- just another big shopping experience. I'm not even a Christian but that really makes me sad. Perhaps the next time a bunch of fundies decide they need to put their holidays on public display they ought to do it at shopping malls to remind folks what those holidays are supposed to mean.

[ellie]

37. I must be very spoiled

Because my mom was still giving all us kids Easter baskets filled with candy and stuff when we were in our 20s. My mom rocks! She did, however, re-use the baskets from year to year.

[annabanana]

39. as the mother of "almost 20's"...

I can tell you it's very hard to turn off the old habits. This is the first year we won't be hiding eggs around the house.. and I STILL did baskets. When I told my oldest we weren't hiding eggs he said "You shouldn't have told me that.. You could've said you did and kept us busy all day, impressed with your improved hiding skills"

We all had a good laugh, and now, waiting for the kids to wake up (think noon - 1"ish").. I may tell them I changed my mind and DID hide eggs.... ha!

[carlydenise]

42. As a mom of teens

My kids still color eggs and we hide them, and they still get easter basket with stuff and candy in them. I don't buy bubbles anymore and little toys, the little presents have turned into body piercing jewelry and music cds, a little more expensive but they still have fun. As for those cheap premade easter baskets at Walmart, I bought those a couple of times then realized that they are made of mostly cheap easter grass on the inside (they stuff like paper in the bottom to make it look like its chock fully of stuff), and the cheapest toys I have ever seen. I always made their baskets, using the same basket year to year (I still have their baskets, they have had them for about 12 years now)

[nonconformist]

41. I'll probably do it long after my kids are grown too

Stockings on Christmas, too. I'm weird like that!

[alcibiades_mystery]

40. This is one of those times that I'm really happy we're atheists

Baskets and candy and eggs.

Yowza.