Its one of those things you do, to get the kids out of the house, off screens, and do something healthy – like hunt for massive amounts of chocolate so that they can gorge themselves sick.
This has become something of an annual event in the family, born from a few cross-cultural Easter traditions.
The Easter bunny leaves her eggs, sometimes in bushes, under flowers and even up trees. and the signal that this has happened is the sound of the local church bells. then the kids are allowed to collect them. There are some bits that don’t quite add up, but the kids haven’t really questioned anything so far.
Even when one year the wife and kids were walking through a park and started to find loads of those really big chocolate eggs. After a fairly good harvest a couple approached them and politely suggested that they had found their eggs and could they please return them. Obviously a bit embarrassing.
We had amassed a large gang of cousins and headed off to a local park where we had heard a rumor that the traditional Easter bunny had left her eggs scattered around a well-defined area.
Not everything was plain sailing.
“why is it so far?”
“last year the bunny came to our garden. Why couldn’t she come back this year?”
“I haven’t heard the bells. That’s a mosque, it doesn’t have bells”
We finally got there and started the pre-planned diversionary tactic (playing on the monkey bars) so that Auntie Gaby could sneak off to do the egg hiding.
Finally we got given the signal that the bunny had passed. The bells were very faint, and adults could only hear them.
We finally arrived in the right area. The instructions were concise,
Gaby, “the bunny laid the eggs somewhere”.
Dad, “any other tips?”
Gaby, “near a tree”
Dad, “great, thanks. Anything a bit more specific?”
Gaby, “or near a plant”
Gaby, “or a flower”
Dad, “nice one. very helpful in a park…”
Dad, “how many are there?”
The Wife chipped in to help out, “loads”
The kids hadn’t waited for the instructions, maybe they knew what was coming, but they had scattered to the nearest bushes.
Over the next few minutes there were cries of joy and excitement. But slowly the screams were becoming less frequent.
Tom had given up and was knocking the heads off dandelions with his stick. And number 1 was searching through the medium of cartwheels.
Luckily Auntie Gabs was able to give some subtle guidance, “it might be near those trees, or those other ones, with the branches”, said hopefully
After a few vague top-tips it was clear that we were struggling to remember where the last few eggs were located.
Although it wasn’t helped by not really knowing how many we should have been looking for.
We finally got to the end.
A big sigh of relief. From everyone.