Moms Talk: Do You Relax Candy Rules at Easter?

For those kids (young or maybe on the verge of young adulthood) whose sweet tooths already may be tingling at the thought of Easter baskets on the way, this weekend looms second only to Halloween as an opportunity to indulge a love of candy.

Certainly, now that today's parents are supposed to be dieticians along with everything else, we all try to be somewhat responsible in what we select, and the amount of candy mysteriously delivered by the bunny. (Did anyone ever specify how the bunny makes the rounds to fill these baskets?)

On Easter mornings, I used to wake to a beautifully arranged basket wrapped in pink or purple cellophane and filled with my favorite chocolates, candies and — how did I ever find them so appealing? — wildly unnaturally colored peeps.

Then came the best part — We got to choose one candy to eat before breakfast!

I'm not much of a candy eater, and I probably didn't overindulge through the day, but I never gave up the chance to enjoy the magic of such flagrant rule-breaking once a year!

When it came time to be the adult basket provider, (with the fantastical rabbit's help) I tried to load up my kids' baskets more with toys or even a gift certificate or two. One trick was loading up plastic eggs with a little chocolate or a few jelly beans inside to "fill space."

But I never had the heart to revoke that one-sweet-before-breakfast allowance.

If you celebrate Easter, do you still have baskets in your house? Are family Easter Egg hunts a good substitute to keep the fun, and reduce the candy consumption?

If so, how do you fill the baskets? Or the eggs?

Now that chocolate is not frowned upon as being truly bad for us, do you favor chocolate over grossly sugary jelly beans or peeps?

Does it matter what flavor chocolate you get? If your kid wants white chocolate, as I always did, do you provide it even if it's not considered as healthy as dark chocolate? (I wonder where those homemade pink chocolate bunnies my one grandmother used to get us every year would fall on the choco-meter.)

Do you have other sweet treats that may be considered relatively healthy? Does your daughter or son truly enjoy them?

What else do you use to fill that basket? Would you go as far as movie tickets or even cash to create a little excitement, but avoid sugar shock?

Are Easter baskets a tradition that should be retired? What's the alternative, if any? Or are they a childhood tradition that for some families make special memories? (Or cavities?)

And finally, have you ever secretly stolen candy from your child's basket?

Please tell us what you think in the comments section below.