It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had to fly from Los Angeles to New York for an event on Monday, with meetings booked solid for the following three days. I planned to fly out on Sunday, missing the chocolate-fueled, massive egg hunt excess of Easter morning. My in-laws have it down to a science: They color code the eggs to avoid arguments between the kids and fill them with more socks and trinkets than candy to avoid arguments with us, then stash them all around the garden and house for a few sugar-fueled hours of perfect photo-ops.

Secretly, I was happy to miss it. By now Easter seems as artificial as Valentine’s Day to me—a manufacturer’s holiday awkwardly slapped onto a day of religious significance. Why not just have Chocolate Day or Day to Support the Flower Industry? Plus, the excess always makes me cringe: The Easter Bunny commercials seem to start the day they bring the cupids down. It’s the same flow of chocolate, just cut from a different mold.

And what about all that chocolate? The billion-dollar chocolate industry is supported by workers—some of them children—who exist at subsistence levels, unable to send their children to school. The irony of this chocolate fueling the sugar lust of children like mine is heartbreaking. Fair trade, organic, sustainable—does it come bunny shaped?

Surprisingly, I found all the traditional Easter shapes crafted in fair trade, organic and sustainable chocolate at Taraluna.com, with vegan options to boot. Cadbury’s iconic Dairy Milk bar will be the first mass-manufactured bar to go fair trade this year. And according to Global Exchange, even the Easter Bunny’s choosing fair-trade chocolate, and encouraging like-minded buyers to sign a petition asking the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers to do the same.

And the eggs? We may not think of going organic for eggs that are simply destined to be dyed, but buying conventionally raised eggs supports farms that may feed their chickens pesticides, insecticides, genetically engineered food and sewage—all of which ends up in the eco-system, regardless of whether you eat them hard-boiled or not.

Regardless of the season, eggs at my house are certified organic, grass-fed and free range, meaning they can walk and peck—rather than being confined to a tiny cage. Next year I’m excited to try dyeing them from natural colors derived from four cups of a chopped fruit or vegetable, mixed in a pot with four cups water and two tablespoons white vinegar and boiled for a minimum of 15 minutes. It may not be as simple as dissolving a tablet of artificial color—linked to hyperactivity in children in a recent study, although probably not from the minimal exposure they’d get from dyeing eggs—but the colors we’ll develop from beets, yellow onion skins, spinach and blueberries will be far more exciting. We might even throw in some t-shirts, for fun!

But now, sitting in the airport lounge waiting for my flight to take off, I’m sad. I’ve always celebrated Easter with my family. When I was growing up, there would be a flowering plant or a little clutch of chocolate eggs that my father had placed near my pillow while I slept, so that I’d see it the minute I woke up as evidence of the Easter Bunny having left its mark. I was 13 when we moved to Italy, and I remember that year wandering the shops, amazed at the elaborate scenes inside the sugar eggs. I have pictures from the last 10 years of Easter in my in-law’s garden, first with my little boy toddling in suspenders, then of him with his arms around baby sister; last year they both held the hands of the Barnacle (read: baby) as she stumbled around with her basket full of sock-filled eggs.

Easter is, after all, a celebration of Spring, in all its sweetness. And sweetness, for me, is family—chocolate and eggs are secondary.

Next year, Easter’s at my house.