It’s Not Easter Yet

We’re over a week out from Easter, and I have to say, I feel like Easter should have already happened. I blame the stores. With how early the merchandise is put out, by the time the actual holiday arrives, I’m just confused. 

(By the way, if your baby needs an outfit for a 4th of July BBQ three months from now, Target has you covered!)

We don’t really have a solid way of doing Easter at our house. The Easter bunny comes, but he doesn’t do the same thing each time. Sometimes he hides things. Sometimes he brings Easter baskets. Sometimes he brings church clothes. Sometimes he brings swimming suits or sandals. Sometimes he brings water toys for summer. He just flies by the seat of his pants each year based on what kind of mood his in, what the kids need, and what his budget is.

Last year, Santa Claus accidentally left two toys behind, so he graciously donated them to the Easter bunny. That was very helpful since we were in lockdown for COVID. The Easter bunny enlisted the help of Amazon to track down two more gifts, and each kid had to hunt around the house to find their gift on Easter. 

This year, we’re not in lockdown (thank heavens), but the circumstances of our Easter are going to be kind of unique still (explanation to come in a later post). The Easter bunny is hiding eggs this time, and as I’ve coordinated our holiday with the Easter bunny, I’ve considered how to do an egg hunt. 

Among our extended family, Scotty and I have experienced Easter hunts in different ways.

In my mom’s family, all the various goodies are hidden in piles. When you find a pile, you take one item. In the end. You have one of each item. 

In Scotty’s mom’s family, your name is written on your stuff. You’ll find hundreds of things that aren’t yours, and everyone shouts out everyone else’s names. It’s a cooperative effort. Then there’s random candy lying around everywhere that’s free for all.

In Scotty’s dad’s family, you are assigned an egg color or type, so you look for soccer balls, or farm animals, or pink eggs. 

Each method works, but I decided that for this hunt, we would write names on the eggs. I decided to help the Easter bunny out a little bit and get the eggs filled nice and early. So about two weeks ago, I stuffed the eggs - probably about 100 of them - and wrote the kids’ names on them. Then I put them in a box and put it high up on the shelf of our storage room. 

About a week later, Scotty and I heard a weird crashing noise. Then one of the girls came to us and said, “There are Easter eggs and candy all over the storage room floor!”

This is such a classic example of how my life goes that all I can do is laugh. Of course the eggs fell off the shelf and split open! Why wouldn’t they? Never mind the fact that no one was in (not had been in) the storage room, and there was no explanation for the box falling.

So lucky me, I got to clean it all up and re-stuff all the eggs. That’s one more reason it seems like Easter should have come and gone by now - I’ve done the prep work twice!