Trash Bag Memories

Yesterday was Easter, I have loved Easter since I was a little girl.  My sister wrote in her blog about the Easters we had when we were little girls.  They were probably the beginning of all of my holiday memories and the reasons why I wanted to make wonderful holiday memories for my children.
We sat around the table yesterday after church and after dinner, remembering the Easters that we all shared with extended families years ago.  Normally we went to  my older sisters house, she has three boys.  We would all pitch in with dinner and then of course the kids had their Easter egg hunt.  Yesterday after everyone left I brought out the old pictures and was enjoying the memories of those hunts.  The kids all had their baskets and ran like crazy all around the yard trying to find as many eggs as they could.  Some of them would find one egg and sit, open the egg, eat the candy and then go looking for their next treasure. 
After the Easter egg hunt the kids would eat as much of the candy that they could before parents were telling them to put it away for now.  The hard boiled eggs didn't usually get eaten right away.  Those were saved for later in the day to be hidden again in the house for the kids to find again.  By the time the eggs had been hidden and found several times no one really wanted to eat them, they were cracked and nasty looking.  But those kids had FUN.
My almost 12 year old granddaughter has a friend who is about the same age.  She comes from a family of six children.  I think the first three children were a bit of a disappointment to their mother so in effect she just seemed to give up on mothering when the youngest came along.
Yesterday at church my granddaughter and her friend were sharing the events of the morning with each other.  Emma, my granddaughter, was telling her friend about the earrings that were in her basket.  Now I know that Emma no longer believes in the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus, but she can't  quite bring herself to say it out loud.  What if by some really weird chance that they are real. Would she blow her chances of ever receiving Easter or Christmas gifts ever again?
Anyway, Emma's friend was telling her about her Easter "basket", which as it turns out was really an Easter trash bag.  She got all the neat stuff but it was all shoved into a trash bag.  Emma didn't know quite what to say, her friend told her that she had always gotten her Easter candy and gifts in a trash bag.
Now, when  my daughter told me about this it made me incredibly sad.  I'm sure that Emma's friend didn't care one way or another because that's all she ever had.  And it probably didn't make her sad.  And let me clarify, the trash bag wasn't a money issue.  I don 't believe that money is a problem in their household.  I think it is an "I'm done with all the holiday trappings",so to speak, issue.
When my children where young we tried to make every holiday special because we wanted them to have those memories, memories that included the family we spent the holiday with.  And to me, what a wonderful way to start an Easter Sunday,with the gift of an Easter basket.  Kind of a reminder of the gift that was given to each of us.  A gift of love and sacrifice.
Well, anyway, I feel pretty confident that my children and my grandchildren will always have wonderful memories of holidays spent together with family that loves them.  I don't want trash bag memories for my family.