I love the idea of minimalism, and I’m on a quest to incorporate that concept in all areas of my life, including holidays.
Especially holidays.
So with Easter approaching, I knew I wanted to eliminate traditional baskets this year. Buying toys in order to fill big baskets seemed excessive to me, especially in our house where Easter isn’t a big holiday. My kids have always been afraid of costumed characters, so we don’t make a point to see the Easter bunny at the mall. We also don’t go to church, so the only exposure that my kids get about the holiday is from school and the media.
But that’s just enough societal pressure to acknowledge the holiday in our house. Still, I wanted to keep it simple but fun. My plan was to reuse the brightly colored plastic eggs that we’d accumulated from years past, fill them with coins and small pieces of candy, then hide them while my 7-year-old daughter slept. On Easter morning, she would wake up and eagerly begin searching for the eggs that the “Easter bunny” had brought during the night.
Things did not go as planned.
On the day before Easter, I walked into our bedroom where I came across a curious scene: my husband was filling the plastic eggs with candy – with the door wide open and all of the kids home.
“What are you doing?” I asked, mortified. “Lauren could walk in at any time!”
“She already did,” he said. “She asked me what I was doing and I told her I was filling the eggs for the Easter hunt at Grandma’s house.”
I mentally chided myself for not effectively communicating the details of my Easter plan to my husband before that moment. “But those eggs were supposed to be hidden tonight, in our house, by the Easter bunny – not us.”
He shrugged his shoulders as he snapped shut a candy-filled plastic egg. “Let’s just see what happens,” he said, clearly not worried that this just might be the year that our daughter learns that the Easter bunny isn’t real.
I considered that idea for a moment. Honestly, there was a part of me that was past the whole “maintaining the charade” act. Keeping up the societal myth of the Easter Bunny was one more thing that cluttered my life. I was ready to eliminate that, but I also didn’t want to ruin the magic of the holiday for my daughter. This is a dilemma that I encounter at Christmas, Easter, and with each loss of a tooth (Hello, Tooth Fairy!).
I decided to surrender and accept whatever would happen on Easter morning.
I didn’t have to wait that long before a solution came. After dinner that night, I’d collapsed into bed to relax when my husband walked in to grab his shoes.
“Where are you going this late?” It was only 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, but at this stage in our lives, that’s late.
“I’m taking Madeleine to Casey’s,” he said, referring to my 15-year-old. “She wants to do a scavenger hunt for Lauren and needs to get a few things.”
Oh, great, I thought. More things. But I was too exhausted to protest.
An hour later, when I was doing my final walk through the house to shut it down for the night, I encountered one of the clues from the scavenger hunt that Madeleine had created for her little sister. She had drawn a picture of a masked robber, taped it to a coffee mug, then positioned it next to a glass that had a picture taped on it with the caption, “Help, I’m being mugged!”
I chuckled at my oldest daughter’s pun, then considered all of the effort that she had put into making the holiday magical and fun for her sister.
My heart melted.
The next morning, we awoke to a rainy Easter Day. My husband got up and started rummaging through the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard him knock on Madeleine’s door. “Do you have the doughnuts up there?” he asked – a perfectly rational question to ask of a teenager who often squanders food in her room despite our house rules.
“What doughnuts?” I asked.
“We bought some last night so we could have them this morning,” said my husband.
Just then, Madeleine thundered down the stairs, rubbing her eyes and mumbling something intelligible.
“What did you say?” I asked.
“They’re outside,” she said, and started walking toward the back door.
“Why are they outside?” I asked incredulously, as I listened to the pitter-patter of the rain on the roof.
“They were part of the scavenger hunt,” she said. She opened the door, walked over to the kids’ playhouse, and retrieved the soggy box of doughnuts. “And the end of the scavenger hunt is up there,” she added, pointing to several convenience-store size packages of food on the landing of the playhouse.
She looked at me sheepishly. “I didn’t know it was going to rain.”
I wasn’t upset with her, though. Sure, her teenage mind wasn’t filled with much common sense yet, but that will change as she matures (please, please tell me that will change as she matures). Right now, her mind was filled with playfulness and love for her sister, and that’s what mattered most.
We went back in the house and waited for Lauren to wake up. When she did, she came across a piece of paper which read:
Good morning! I have a special treat waiting for you guys. Follow my clues to find it!
But hurry! I think someone is being MUGGED. Don’t be latte!
Sincerely, The Easter Bunny
Lauren’s eyes lit up and she raced to find her first clue. Inside the victimized glass, she found her next clue: Thanks for saving the glass from being mugged. I’m not a big FAN of thieves…
Which led Lauren to a plastic egg perched on the ceiling fan which held the clue: Wow! You’re on a ROLL!
Then to the clue next to sandwich roll in pantry: SOFA, so good…
Then to the clue on sofa: Great job! I’m sure all of this hunting is POOPING you out!
Ew.
Then to the clue on toilet paper roll: You’re SLIDING to the end of your hunt!
Then to the clue next to acorn at the bottom of the slide outdoors: I don’t mean to be ACORNY, but have a HOPPY Easter. Oh, and look up. – The Easter Bunny
When Lauren looked up at the top of the slide it was like she was seeing a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Unlike the mushy doughnuts in the soggy paper box, this loot was salvageable because it was sealed inside plastic packages. And by loot, I mean one small, consumable item for each family member: Twizzlers, Reese’s peanut butter cups, gummy bears, and Twix for the others, and the ever-addictive Gardetto’s rye crisps for me.
As she carried the loot inside, Lauren exclaimed, “This is the best Easter ever!”
I love that my kids had fun with wordplay instead of playing with cheap plastic trinkets that would be amusing for a moment or two, then tossed into one of their toy cubicles to remain untouched for months.
The scavenger hunt was interactive and light.
And memorable.
Later on that Easter morning, I was talking on the phone with my parents when Lauren waltzed into my bedroom wielding her half-eaten bag of Twix. She must have thought that I’d be upset with her for eating candy for breakfast (it was certainly a step up from soggy donuts) because she held up the bag, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “It’s Easter. What did you EGG-spect?”
Yes, this Easter Punny Hunt will definitely become a family tradition.
Of this, I yam sure.