The White House Easter Egg roll is streaming live online today here on whitehouse.gov. Pictured above are the 2009 White House Easter Egg Roll souvenir eggs. Each wooden egg includes the signatures of the President and First Lady. The National Park Foundation is making the souvenir wooden eggs available to the public. They can purchased here for $7.00 each. A boxed set with four eggs - blue, orange, rose and green - costs $25.
Animals at the Buenos Aires Zoo were given treats of papier mache bunnies and eggs filled with their favorite foods. Some of the animals played with the Easter treats for a while before biting them but the polar bear wasted no time biting into his Easter bunny. Take a look:
More Candy Sold For Easter Than For Valentine's Day
The Nielsen Company reports (PDF file) that consumers spend more candy during the week leading up to Easter than during Valentine's Day. However, Halloween sells over 25% more candy than Easter. Consumers also by lots of fresh eggs for decorating during Easter - over 61 million dozen eggs are expected to be purchased this Easter holiday. Here are some tidbits about consumer spending during Easter and Passover from Nielsen.
Nearly 71 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during the week leading up to Easter. By comparison, nearly 48 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during Valentine’s week and nearly 90 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during Halloween week.
More than 61 million dozen eggs are sold during the week leading up to Easter. Easter week is the top egg selling week of the year with sales 45 percent above average weekly sales. Easter Saturday (April 11) is the top buying day of the year for fresh eggs, followed by Good Friday (April 10).
Consumers are expected to spend more than $3.5 million on matzo, the traditional unleavened bread, during the week leading up to Passover. The week leading up to the holiday is the highest sales week for matzo and matzo meal/mixes, with more than $1.2 million in sales expected.
Nearly 1.5 million bottles, or $6.5 million in sales of kosher table wine, a traditional part of the Passover Seder, will be sold during the four weeks leading up to Passover, representing approximately 13 percent of the total year's sales of kosher wines. Approximately 65 percent of that amount will be sold during the two week period just before and during the Passover holiday.
Pictured above is the Easter Egg Decorating Kit from Williams-Sonoma. Williams-Sonoma has more information (including a video) about the Easter egg kit here.
Kmart.com Tries Easter Egg Concept to Drive Traffic
ABC Action News reports that K-Mart isn't ready to give up on Cyber Monday just yet. They plan special codes for the next couple mondays.
And for the next two Mondays secret offer codes will save you big. On Monday, December 8th, enter the code ILOVEKMART2 and save an extra $5 dollars off a $25 purchase. On December 15th, you can get the same deal when you enter ILOVEKMART3.
To save, enter the codes at checkout. The codes cannot be reused.
The article says K-mart also has hidden ornaments on its website. If you can find one you get an additional discount. Many video games also have hidden features or treasures. These are known as "Easter Eggs" in video games. It's interesting to see retailers embracing the concept and it could work if there are enough of the hidden ornaments to keep shoppers happy. It should increase traffic to kmart.com anyway.
The Nielsen Company 
ABC Action News 
