In an effort to be slightly less lame about Easter than I was last year--high standards for me, yup--I purchased an egg-dying kit at the grocery store yesterday.
I know! Look at me! Next thing you know I'm going to be crafting my own fake grass for Easter baskets and sewing themed tablecloths!
Or not. Anyway.
I informed Cubby quite proudly that I had all the things to dye Easter eggs and he said, "I thought the Easter Bunny does that." (I am assuming this is something he heard at preschool.)
Say what?
My own experience as a kid was that we always dyed the eggs and the Easter Bunny hid the Easter baskets. The MiL said that when her kids were small, she dyed the Easter eggs at night and then hid them, so sort of like the mystery of Christmas stockings, maybe? We have a conflict of tradition here.
Cubby decided that we can dye the eggs, but of course the Easter Bunny will hide them. Which is all well and good, except that it's supposed to be 28 degrees and snowing the night before Easter, so I can't hide them at night unless we want frozen, snow-covered eggs. And Cubby specifically asked for an outside egg hunt. This means I'm going to be hiding eggs outside at 5:30 in the morning in the dark, probably wearing my wool coat and gloves. How spring-like.
Anyway again.
My poll question is this: Did you (or your kids) dye Easter eggs yourself as a kid or was that supposed to be the Easter Bunny's job?
Growing up my mom dyed them and then hid them. When we had our girls, we would dye eggs together just for the fun of it, and then I would dye some without them for the Easter bunny to hide. Different colors, maybe even decorated with stickers...
ReplyDeleteWe dyed them ourselves, which I suspect was much more fun. You might share with Cubby the hazards to the outside egg hunt--and that he wouldn't be able to enjoy eating them. Perhaps hide them throughout the downstairs rooms? In our family the Easter bunny did bring baskets with other treats. Mary in MN
ReplyDeleteAs a child I always went to the Church egg hunt on Saturday before Easter. My mother and I dyed the eggs for me to take to the hunt. The Easter Bunny would hide plastic eggs with slips of paper in them that told me where to look in the house to find my presents.
ReplyDeleteI always dyed eggs with my sons the Saturday before Easter. They left their empty Easter baskets on the table in the living room and the Easter Bunny would fill them.
My boys, now in their 40's, liked to dye their own eggs. I don't think we ever hid them, but the Easter Bunny brought each boy an Easter basket.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea to have the plastic outside with clues about where to find them on the inside. A fun hunt and edible eggs as well. Best of both worlds.
ReplyDeleteWe dyed eggs before Easter for fun and the Easter bunny hid candy and provided baskets so that high-value candy would be fairly distributed. The Easter bunny's favorite trick was to drape gummy worms throughout the house which was disgusting enough to please the boys and low-value enough that no one really cared who found the most.
ReplyDeleteSo we have TWO dying kits. Because I have failed to get around to coloring eggs two years in a row and probably will not again this year. But, you know, I did get the kits. Although at least I know better than to buy another one this year, I guess.
ReplyDeleteRuns in the family, huh?
-moi
We would have felt quite cheated as kids not to be able to help with the decorating. We left the colored eggs in our baskets and the EB hid the eggs and replaced them in the baskets with other goodies.
ReplyDeleteAs a child, we colored the eggs, left them in our baskets, the Bunny hid them in the house (Chicago Easters can be snowy as well), and left goodies in our baskets. As an adult, I tried to follow that, but learned that refrigerator-cold eggs can form condensation while hiding in a warm house, and leave dye-stains on carpet, etc. We then hid plastic eggs and ate the real ones.
ReplyDeleteMy sister and I would dye eggs with my mom the night before Easter. We never did personal egg hunting because that was done at church.
ReplyDeleteLater as a parent, I still dye eggs with my kids the night before Easter but I only hide the plastic eggs. One year it was too cold and so we hid them in the house and not all the eggs were found. a week later we found it. So plastic eggs for hiding and real eggs for basket/eating. Happy Easter!
The eggs the "bunny" hid were the plastic kind. That way, if we missed one, we wouldn't have a Templeton the Rat episode like the one in Charlotte's Web - for those who don't know, it was stink city!
ReplyDeleteWe dyed them as a family.
ReplyDeleteEaster Bunny simply brought baskets and hid them.
We'd have an egg hunt at Grandparents' house, but it was just for plastic eggs filled with candy.
So, being the resident Jew here, I don't have any egg hiding traditions to share, but my Grandfather used to hide the afikomen in the exact same place every year so that we could "just eat, already". Which is a position I totally respect.
ReplyDeleteSo, I say just do whatever gets you to the meal fastest.