Hosting the holiday this year? These Easter ideas will keep your guests entertained between bites of chocolate bunnies.
23 Easter Ideas to Celebrate a Hopping Good Holiday
Updated on Feb. 14, 2025
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Make Your Own Easter Candy
Everyone loves a Reese’s peanut butter egg or a handful of jelly beans on Easter, but you can really make the holiday special by whipping up your own homemade Easter candy. These recipes for marshmallow eggs, jelly bean bark and chewy caramels all have top ratings from home cooks.
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Dye Eggs
Is it even Easter without dyed eggs? You can dye eggs easily with vinegar, food coloring and hot water. You can also try other fun Easter egg decorating ideas.
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Make a Bunny Board
Who doesn’t love a good grazing board? These spreads encourage guests to sample all sorts of tasty treats. On Easter, that means favorites like Peeps, Robin Eggs, chocolate bunnies and homemade Easter candies.
For more inspiration, we have plenty of suggestions on how to make an Easter charcuterie board for your party.
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Set a Festive Table
Easter is the perfect time to adorn your table with fresh flowers and your best dinnerware. You can also make an easy place setting with a napkin, twine and an egg (you can use a plastic one if you’d like!).
Just twist the napkin into a long, thin strip and pull it taut around an egg. Tie it with twine or a ribbon, and place one of these bunnies on each plate. You can go a step further by writing your guests’ names or drawing a bunny face on the eggs.
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Bake Hot Cross Buns
Hot cross buns are baked to celebrate the end of Lent. While they’re traditionally enjoyed on Good Friday, these fruit-studded buns are the perfect accompaniment for an Easter breakfast or brunch.
For more Easter breakfast ideas that won’t take all morning, peep these Easter Breakfast ideas that are easy and delicious.
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Decorate an Easter Tree
Easter trees are a fun adornment for your home. There are plenty of decorative trees for sale during this spring season, but you can easily make your own! Nestle branches into a tall vase and adhere brightly colored pompoms or felt balls to the twigs with hot glue. You can even dust these baubles with a bit of glitter.
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Dye Deviled Eggs
Don’t limit dyeing to eggshells! You can even dye the egg inside to make festive Easter deviled eggs. To dye the eggs, boil and peel the eggs first, then dip the hard-boiled eggs in a food dye bath.
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Decorate with Easter Lilies
Bright white lilies have been part of Easter celebrations for ages. Add these flowers to your Easter centerpiece or even buy an Easter lily plant to adorn your home all season long. Don’t have a green thumb? Our guide on caring for an Easter lily can help.
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Make a Lamb Cake
Time to break out your cake mold! A lamb cake is a traditional Easter dessert that many families consider a tradition. Have everyone participate in making and decorating this cake. Some folks can make the batter, then some can frost while others can finish off the creation with colored coconut and jelly beans.
Don’t have a lamb-shaped pan? Try making a bunny cake instead using a round cake pan!
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Build a Candy Centerpiece
Take your flower arranging skills to a new level by including Easter candy! This centerpiece is made by nestling two vases together. Between the walls of the vases, you can layer in your favorite holiday treats like jelly beans, Peeps and malted milk eggs. With the candy in place, you can fill the center vase with water and flowers.
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Bake Empty Tomb Rolls
These empty tomb rolls, sometimes called resurrection rolls, are the perfect treat to bake up on Easter morning. Marshmallows are wrapped in crescent dough and baked. When baked, the marshmallow melts away leaving an empty space inside these sweet treats.
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Play Easter Bingo
If Easter turns out to be a bit too chilly or rainy for outdoor games, try an easy Easter game like bingo. Use jelly beans or small foil-wrapped eggs as markers.
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Fly a Kite
In Bermuda, it has long been tradition to fly a kite on Good Friday. Now, folks elsewhere have caught on to this activity. Flying a kite is a great way to spend some family time outside on Easter (and all spring long).
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Decorate Easter Cookies
If your family isn’t big on hard-boiled eggs but you can’t resist the idea of decorating treats, make a batch of Easter cutout cookies. Be sure to have plenty of royal icing on hand for decorating.
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Host a Classic Easter Egg Hunt
Hide Easter eggs (or candy-filled plastic eggs) around your home and backyard for the kids to seek out. There are so many fun Easter egg hunt ideas to take your celebration to the next level, from hiding glow-in-the-dark eggs at night to stuffing a big golden egg with plenty of treats.
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Use Edible Flowers
An easy way to add springtime flair to any dessert—including our favorite Easter cakes—is by adding edible flowers. Flowers like pansies, roses and chamomile buds are all safe to eat and look so elegant when garnishing sweet treats.
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Host an Easter Egg Roll
Since 1878, the White House has hosted an official Easter egg roll. You can host your own this holiday and have kids (and even the adults) race to roll their eggs across the lawn using a wooden spoon. Be sure to have a prize for the winner!
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Bake a Traditional Easter Bread
Decorative breads are an important part of many Easter celebrations around the world. Italian Easter bread is braided and baked with colored eggs. You can also try Greek tsoureki, Polish paska or Austrian kugelhopf. These breads are often rich and slightly sweet—ideal to celebrate the end of Lent and the start of springtime.
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Take Time to Reminisce
While Easter bonnets may have fallen out of fashion, it’s still fun to take a look back at their heyday—and all the fashions of the past. Take a few moments on the holiday to look at old photos or watch old home movies. These vintage Easter memories might just inspire a new tradition next year!
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Make Baskets for Everyone
Kids don’t need to be the only ones to reap the Easter Bunny’s benefits this holiday! Make Easter baskets for all your loved ones. While you’ll want to stuff youngsters’ baskets with candies and toys, you can build grown-up-friendly gift baskets filled with small gifts based on their interests.
Gardeners might appreciate a new pair of gloves and some seeds. Crafters would appreciate a skein of pretty yarn or a new set of calligraphy pens. And when all else fails, everyone loves Easter candy and treats!
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Decorate a Wreath
Unlike the evergreen wreaths of Christmastime, Easter wreaths showcase spring colors and blooms. It’s fairly easy to make a DIY wreath. Start with a flat-face circle wreath form. Wrap ribbon tightly around it, then glue the ends to secure them together. Now, cover the ring with your choice of decorations. Brightly colored plastic Easter eggs look pretty when glued in clusters around the wreath. Felted balls or paper flowers add springtime charm. Using durable materials like dried flowers or bow-tied ribbons would make this a great outdoor Easter decoration.
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Perfect Your Easter Ham
What better way to improve the Easter table than to show off a five-star ham recipe? Go with a classic glazed ham, which takes a bone-in ham and coats it with a simple glaze of brown sugar, mustard and vinegar. The sweet-and-tangy glaze complements the tender ham perfectly. If you want to shake things up, try a more outside-the-box recipe. Go tropical with pineapple-studded ham, or travel back to the groovy era of the soda stand with root beer-glazed ham.
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Make Easter Mimosas and Kiddie Cocktails
Start the celebrations early! We love to follow the morning egg hunt with an Easter brunch, and all of our favorite eggs, bacon and pancakes pair perfectly with a sparkly mimosa. If you don’t drink alcohol, substitute the sparkling wine with citrus-flavored sparkling water or ginger ale. Kids love special drinks too. Shirley Temples are classic, but if you’re serving a crowd, it’s easier to stir up a big bowl of punch.
