It is a once in a generation opportunity for parents to play April Fool’s pranks on their children on Easter Sunday morning. Here are our top tips
Parents rejoice! For the first time since 1956, Easter Sunday and April Fool’s Day take place on the same day – meaning it’s a once in a lifetime chance to play corny and obvious Easter-themed pranks on your children. Here are some suggestions:
A treasure hunt with a twist
A fantastic Easter Sunday tradition is to do a treasure hunt where the Easter Bunny has left eggs around your house, and each egg has a small written clue or riddle directing the children to where they can find the next one. But this year, instead of hiding chocolate eggs, why not leave some carrots in their place. On the third or fourth clue you can make it appear as if the Easter Bunny has left a note apologising for eating all the chocolate, but saying they hope you enjoy this left-behind lunch.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Sunday is a golden opportunity for parents to wind up their children - and then just blame these guys. Photograph: Michael Walter/PA
An Easter basket with a difference
Prepare an Easter basket for the children, and either wrap it up or cover it up so the contents can’t be seen. Have a card from the Easter Bunny next to it which they can open first, with a message that the Easter Bunny wants them to have an extra special Easter this year and so has prepared a special gift for them. But rather than chocolate or sweets, what you’ve put in the basket is incredibly dull stuff that kids will be completely unimpressed by - new toothpaste, some socks, a packet of batteries.
Surprise them with grapes
This one is a bit fiddly, but promises huge rewards. Buy a packet of mini eggs with foil wrappers. Unwrap them carefully, and (optionally) eat the chocolate yourself. Wrap grapes up in the place of the chocolate. Put the grapes back in the packet and wait for hilarity to ensue.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest With a little bit of effort, grapes can be cunningly disguised as mini Easter eggs. Photograph: molka/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A sticky situation
You’ll need to prepare this in advance, but buy some of the plastic eggs that contain toys. Unwrap them, open them, and then carefully glue them shut and re-wrap them. You don’t have to be too tidy – your children are going to be thinking about getting to the toy, and are not going to be suspicious. Sit back and enjoy them trying and failing to open the eggs.
The invisible Easter egg hunt
This is an excellent plan if you have a garden. Tell the children there is an Easter egg hunt in the garden. Put the children in the garden. Close the back door. Let them spend ages searching fruitlessly for Easter eggs that you haven’t actually hidden. After you’ve enjoyed a rare 10 minutes of peace and quiet indoors, while they get increasingly bemused and frustrated, go into the garden claiming to have found a note from the Easter Bunny. The note reads “April Fool”.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Imagine the peace and quiet you could enjoy on Easter Sunday morning by sending your kids out on a quest to find some Easter eggs that simply aren’t there. Photograph: National Trust/Rex
The ultimate Easter Sunday April Fool’s prank
If you really want to get Easter started with some tears and tantrums, why not just tell your children the truth about the Easter Bunny? And Father Christmas while you are at it...
The awesome thing about April Fools’ Day in the digital age is that you’re less likely to worry about finding tacks scattered on your favorite chair or some buffoon whipping out a whoopie cushion. The best gags are bound to happen online, where we can review them with the amused distance of fake news connoisseurs … all from the safety of our screens.
And since April Fools’ falls on a Sunday this year, lots of brands are pushing their pranks before the actually day. Here’s some of the good, bad and the questionable pranks that we’ve seen so far.
Peeps
Peeps introduces its new celebrity creative director: the Energizer Bunny! It keeps going and going—long after the product itself disappears from shelves once egg-hunting time is over.
Burger King
How committed are you to Burger King? Enough to get an order kiosk installed in your living room? Because that’s exactly what the brand is proposing with Buzzman’s “Whopper Easy Order”—though this foolishness feels tamer than when it actually challenged the King of Belgium or hired people to wait in line for you, or released a cryptocurrency…
Back stateside, Burger King’s got another trick up its sleeve: The Chocolate Whopper. No need to wait for dessert when you can have it for lunch.
KeVita
With help from Golin, fermented probiotic and kombucha beverage brand KeVita taps into the drinkable glitter trend with organic glitter-infused KeVita Master Brew Kombucha Gilded Grapefruit—an even bigger mouthful than KeVita’s product description. Sure is pretty, though.
Petco
It’s often said that pets end up resembling their masters over time, so you might as well jump ahead: Petco’s Beautiful Bond Salon, endorsed by dog dad Topher Brophy, ensures your fusional relationship with your pet is as obvious as possible. It also serves as wonderful hangover candy for The Shape of Water.
White Castle
Why eat your sliders when you can drink them? No one has time for that. For folks looking to get “swole,” White Castle enters the fitness industry with White Castle Whey, 100 percent slider protein.
Chuck E. Cheese
Rock stars are so fickle. Building on news that the brand plans to remove its weird animatronic band from a few stores, Chuck E. Cheese presents Munch’s Make Believe Band’s Farewell Tour. (Mr. Munch is one of the band members, along with Chuck E. Cheese, Helen Henny, Jasper T. Jowls and Pasqually. Now you know all their names!)
Concert posters will be distributed nationwide … and you can also download the band’s latest album (for real).
Pop Chips
Pop Chips has a new product for the Lisa Frank fan in you: Unicorn Balls, a “nut-free puffed snack full of creamy rainbow filling with zero shrinkage.”
Made with organic unicorn cream filling—milk powder, unicorn tears, enchanted magic, liquid love, essence of pink—plus some organic sparkles, probably from the same place KeVita got its glitter.
SodaStream
Shahs of Sunset’s Reza Farahan stars in this winner from SodaStream, created alongside Bed Bath and Beyond. The SodaSoak is a bath experience you—and your genitals!—will never forget. Plus, you can add flavors.
Smithfield’s
Can’t decide whether to have bacon or cereal for breakfast? Fret no more: Smithfield’s Bacon Crisps combines both. It’s a sweetened corn cereal complete with real mouth-watering bacon. Hopefully cooked.
Honda
This is pretty inspired. Cars have sensors for avoiding collisions; why not distracted people walking around on phones? Enter the Sixth Sense app from Honda.
Its “sidewalk departure warning” will alert you when you’re about to veer off the sidewalk, but the best feature by far is the “personal avoidance system,” which informs you of people you don’t want to run into and reroutes you.
Welcome to a collision-free life.
Lexus and 23andMe
Choosing a car is a tough business, because you’re so damn unique. That’s why Lexus partnered with 23andMe to produce “Genetic Select,” which handcrafts a vehicle specific to your chromosomes. Sure.
Wayfair
For those eyeing smart homes, we’ve got something for those boring analog walls. Wayfair’s Scentsible Wallpaper is wallpaper you can change with a single smartphone swipe. Bonus: It’ll emit ambient scents!
Jägermeister
Suffering from Bartender’s Elbow? Jäger Balm from Jägermeister is here to save the day. We suspect it also doubles as a lip balm.
Tech21
Take a big bite out of life, techies. Tech21 introduces FlexChoc, an edible mobile phone case that also resists dropping! (But possibly not melting.)
T-Mobile
Let’s wrap with a comeback: T-Mobile brings back the Sidekick, amped up for the new millennium: It’s a phone in a shoe! Selfie stick functionality included.
Missed anything? Hit us up via email for the Monday roundup. And watch your chairs.
This year April 1 falls on a Sunday—Easter Sunday. The annual celebration of hoaxes is the same day that Christians worldwide celebrate Jesus’s resurrection. That doesn’t sit well with a comfortable faith. No one likes being called a fool.
But Christians have a long history of being called fools. In Jesus’s day, the religious types knew that no Messiah dies like a loser. And the intellectuals knew that no one rises from the dead. So when Christians started claiming that a disgraced and condemned criminal was the living ruler of heaven and earth, everyone knew who to laugh at.
Reasonable Doubt
Thomas gets the “doubter” reputation, but he was not alone. The short ending in Mark describes fearful women, running, scared, and silent (Mark 16:8). Peter and that beloved disciple ran to see for themselves (John 20:1–10). Luke’s witnesses remember being startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost (Luke 24:37). Jesus himself identifies their fear and doubt and then invites them to see and touch (Luke 24:38–39).
As Matthew tells it, “some” still doubted on that Galilean hillside as Jesus sent them to preach to the nations (Matt. 28:16–17). These were not gullible folks. They were not predisposed to imagine a resurrected Christ.
No Resurrection, No Dice
The doubters have a point: a dead Messiah is not good news. If there’s no resurrection, if there’s nothing more than this, if hope is only for this life, then Christians are to be pitied more than anyone in the world. But if Jesus is alive, it changes everything.
One alternative suggests that the disciples, in their grief, made it all up. The oldest alternative to a living Messiah is that it’s a trick pulled by his followers. Is it a double-bluff that they are the ones who record that theory first (Matt. 28:11–15)? That’s some kind of crazy.
It’s strange, to say the least, that people were willing to be killed rather than admit they went in on a hoax. Something or someone transformed that cringing fearful bunch. (The ascended Christ, who pours out his Spirit, is still having that effect on people.)
Less than two months later, 50 days or so, Peter boldly announced that he followed a crucified, risen, ruling, and returning king. The crowd was confused; some sneered and thought the Spirit-filled Christians were drunk (Acts 2:13). But Peter explained, shared his experience, and exhorted (Acts 2:14–40). Many joined, but plenty remained unconvinced.
But one unconvinced person did do a U-turn and said he had more than 500 eyewitnesses to call on (1 Cor. 15:1–11). There is evidence to consider. The Lord doesn’t ask you to shut your eyes and leave your brain at the door.
Yet it’s not the kind of case that will convince you if you assume a dead man could never rise (1 Cor. 15:12–19). Nor will you be convinced if you cannot fathom a crucified and risen Messiah: “The tomb may be empty, but we don’t speak of that in polite company. Can you pass the salt?”
Easter Fools
The message seems foolish, it really does. First Corinthians 1:18 says:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
We can try to persuade others and acknowledge that we might seem a little crazy (2 Cor. 5:11–15). The learned may joke and sneer, or they may want to hear more (Acts 17:32). The powerful may think we’re insane (Acts 26:24). Jesus rose! April Fools’!
But I still want to boast in myself instead of in the Lord. Especially as an educated theological professional, I want to convincingly explain how it all makes sense. I don’t want to sit with doubt and foolishness. I don’t want to be mocked. It’s awkward when the world isn’t as nice and respectable as I want it to be. It’s disturbing when the risen Christ says, “Come.”
Perhaps by Easter and April Fools’ colliding, God might make me a little more foolish. If someone brings it up, I might have courage to laugh, and own it, and openly say that I trust this Jesus. Yes, it seems foolish to put your hope in a crucified, risen, ruling, and returning king. But that’s the only hope I have.
Sunday, April 1 is officially April Fools’ Day 2018. This year the “holiday” for tricksters falls on a particularly sacred day, as Christians worldwide are celebrating Easter. One would think that would put a damper on April Fools’ Day pranks, but far from it. Brands have been secretly rolling out gags over the past week. Check out the list below to see if you or anyone who know has already fallen for any. Keep this article open in a new tab, because we’re updating it in real time for April Fools’ Day 2018 to make sure you don’t fall for any tricks that individuals and companies are pulling. The April Fools’ Day pranks highlighted in the unranked list below are, in TIME’s opinion, the most believable ones out there — news, products, and services that sound like they totally exist today or that sound like they will probably exist in the near future.
Dress rental company Rent the Runway’s announcement that it now offers dog clothes.
Dating site eHarmony’s FUREVER LOVE service to help pets find companions that are good playmates and actual mates.
eHarmony
Two salons offering matching haircuts for pet owners and their pets the same matching haircuts started by Petco and a separate partnership between Wag and Glamsquad.
The latest innovation in wearable tech is not Brooks’ smart running shoe MILES (Motivational Intelligence Light Encouragement System), a running shoe that can play music, update your average time per mile.
Rosetta Stone’s guide for parents “Brosetta Stone,” presumably so parents can understand what their sons have turned into after they’ve joined fraternities.
Cars customized based on customers’ genes through a new partnership between Lexus and genetics company 23andMe, so that, for example, cars with special window tinting will be made for freckled drivers.
Jägermeister (famous for Jäger bombs)’s lip balm called Jäger balm.
Porch Piracy Protection offered by Man Crates, an insurance policy that makes sure packages don’t get stolen off your porches.
ThinkGeek‘s new line of products from Star Trek Klingon Language Fridge Magnets to a Bluetooth-enabled Pet Rock.
Smithfield’s new Bacon Crisps, a sweetened corn cereal with real pieces of bacon.
Duolingo’s beer line Brewolingo to help ease the nerves of speaking a second language in public.
The latest in farm-to-table trends: rabbit-foraged herbs sold by Fresh Direct.
