Easter in New Zealand

One of the benefits of being able to read two newspapers from cover to cover over the weekend is that I now have full knowledge of New Zealand’s easter egg marketplace.

Kiwis spend $28 million on Easter products each year. That’s over $6 a head! It's actually much less money per head than most other countries I've lived in, but it still feels like a lot of money to spend on a single day's worth of chocolate! The nation's favourites are crème eggs and marshmallow eggs, and also eggs filled with Kiwi classics such as pineapple lumps and Jaffas.

Our children both got a few little foil-wrapped eggs, marshmallow eggs (although Alfie disliked his) and a hollow chocolate bunny. Plus a set of pens and some Easter bunny colouring pictures.

We had so much fun watching them hunting in the garden for everything. Their squeals of delight when they found the eggs were brilliant! Then taking them down to the beach to share their loot while we sat on a piece of driftwood as the sun was still rising. What a great start to the day!

But I have a real problem with Easter. Firstly, it’s extremely complicated to explain to a 6 and 4 year old how it relates to a holy man who died more than 2000 years ago – and then rose again! - and why we all celebrate this event by eating chocolate.

To make matters worse, our children still remember the Easter Bilby from last year. Why, they want to know, doesn’t the Easter Bunny deliver to all countries?

However, I do feel lucky that we live in New Zealand, because Easter always coincides with feijoa season. It’s a little painful to have to part with cash this year for our feijoas when I know we have a whole row of feijoa trees back in our Auckland garden which will be supplying massive quantities of fruit.

But never-the-less, feijoas are one of the absolute best things about this time of year and are one of the reasons why Jake and I actually ate less chocolate over the Easter weekend than we ordinarily would do on a normal weekend. Those who know us well may be shocked, but rest assured - we will make up for it soon, as the feijoa season is always short.