The Sweetest Tips For Hosting A Fun Filled, Gorgeous And Delicious Easter Lunch

Ready, set, Easter!
Set the table early for a lovely Easter Sunday lunch, start plotting out your Easter egg hunt and pick up tasty treats for the whole family at butlers chocolate …

Main Image; The Designed Table for Butlers

Easter Sunday Lunch marks a lovely celebratory midpoint between Christmas and summer – a chance to enjoy a leisurely weekend with family and friends. Because it’s a long weekend, there’s a little extra thinking time available to devote to planning your table setting (and a few simple diversions to keep little ones amused). Sign up a creatively minded teenager or friend and get the prep done the evening before, including hiding all the goodies for the all-important Easter Egg Hunt.

The Easter Egg Hunt

If there are children in the party, it might be difficult to keep them quietly seated until after lunch – we suggest the Easter Egg Hunt comes first, while the grown-ups are enjoying a pre-lunch drink and nibbles. Let’s hope it’s fine and dry enough to do this in the garden – assemble a drinks tray and lead everyone outside. Give each child a little bag or basket and let them work off their excitement finding eggs in all sorts of inaccessible places, up high and down low, with strict instructions of course, to keep eggs and chocolates for dessert! We like to hide little chocolate bunnies and mini eggs – after all, the official Easter Bunny will have already delivered the “trophy egg” that morning.

Delicious, giggling Butlers Chocolate bunnies in creamy milk or white chocolate are a fun alternative to an Easter egg for children to find. www.butlerschocolates.com

The Mini Egg stick will always be a crowd pleaser, a variety of ten mini scrumptious eggs, including milk, dark and white chocolate. www.butlerschocolates.com

The assorted mini egg box includes a colourful selection of 15 chocolate-filled eggs in milk, dark and white varieties. www.butlerschocolates.com

Pin The Tail on The Bunny

If one glass of bubbles turns into two, you might need another diversion to keep those kids amused for a little longer. An oldie but a goodie, at Easter the Bunny replaces the Donkey in this classic game. Everyone can draw a rudimentary rabbit on a big sheet of paper and make a sticky tail from adhesive strips or Sellotape and some cotton wool. (There are printable ones online at www.mypartygames.com No peeking out from under that blindfold please!

Why not add to the competition with some prizes for the kids and the adults…

Award the agile-est adult with Butlers medium roast espresso blend, specially roasted and blended for home use in filter machines and cafetières. www.butlerschocolates.com

For the kids, a scrummy Hot Chocolate at Home capsule is perfect for melting and topping with marshmallows. www.butlerschocolates.com

A Pretty Spring Table

All your guests are loosened up after the fresh air, the fun and the fizz, it’s back into the house where a pretty table awaits, coupled with the aroma of delicious roast lamb or beef with all the trimmings. 2023 might be the officially the Chinese Year of the Rabbit but at Butlers it’s the Year of the Chick.

The Irish luxury chocolate makers have designed the sweetest chicks imaginable: adorable milk chocolate birds in milk and white chocolate are a delectable addition to your Easter table. www.butlerschocolates.com We plan to march a line of them down the centre of the table, one for every guest to nibble on with coffee.

Other ideas: a primrose yellow cotton or linen runner, styled up with flowering spring bulbs in pots – muscari and hyacinths are available everywhere now – and a matching yellow napkin. Pop a pair of bunny ears at every kid’s plate.

Bunny Ears €3.49 at Woodie’s www.woodiespartyzone.ie

For gorgeous table accessories, check out these Irish sites. And Happy Easter!

At The Designed Table, a Bunny Beaded Placemat, €25, is a playful hand-embroidered placemat in a delicate pastel green and pearl. www.thedesignedtable.com