1. I know how the fairytale goes. A crowd of delighted kids gathers, bright Easter baskets clutched tightly in quivering hands, bouncing with excitement while they wait to GO! Candy filled plastic eggs dot the grass, ready to be snatched up by giggly children on a sugar high. So.much.fun.
2. Not.
3. Okay, sure, it’s a crowd of delighted kids if you don’t count the three throwing temper tantrums because they have the wrong basket, four running away from their parents, and a handful screaming they don’t want their shoelaces tied before the hunt. Plus grumpy older siblings who got dragged along with could you just smile and have fun FOR YOUR BROTHER’S SAKE?! Criminy!!
4. Bouncing with excitement? Maybe. Or maybe they have to pee. Maybe they’ll drop trou and pee behind that tree over there, forcing Mrs. Baker to explain to her precious baby why Billy can spray the bark but she can’t. Bless.
5. No, the real deal goes something like this. A mob of kids gathers ’round a section of grass. I say “section of grass” because nobody hides eggs anymore, they just drop a bunch in a cordoned off area and release the hounds. Parents hold on with all their might because Lord knows all hell will break loose if somebody touches an egg before it’s Go time. Hell hath no fury like a four-year-old scorned and all that jazz.
6. The big moment comes. The green light is given. We witness humanity in all its glory.
7. Some kids are bulldozers. They roll right through anything and anyone in their path, scooping up handfuls of eggs until their basket’s overflowing. Then they grab the backup basket mom or dad was holding and dive back in. Little kid crying because you stripped an egg from beneath their hand? Too bad, sucker. You snooze, you lose. Adults with this child cheer him on with “You’ve got it, son! Don’t stop! Keep going! GET YOURS!!”
8. Some kids are meek. They move hesitantly from space to space, reaching slowly, needing reassurance that yes, they can actually keep the egg. These kids can go one of two ways – either they’re super easygoing, just as happy with two eggs as they are with ten, or they’re super high strung, bursting into tears when bigger kids grab every egg within a ten foot radius. Adults with this child range from letting their kid gut it out to rushing in to pick them up and brush them off.
9. Then there are the parents who pick up every single egg for their child’s basket. Can your kid walk? Do they have the motor function necessary to bend over, grab an egg, stand up, and release said egg into container? Yes? Then let them do it themselves. It’ll be okay if their bucket isn’t overflowing at the end. Really, it will.
10. Which brings us to the post-Easter egg hunt trauma. Kids stumble around looking shellshocked and a bit befuddled. Where did all the eggs go? There were so many, it can’t be over already. I WANT MORE EGGS, MAMA. MORE EGGS! Some kids abandon their baskets altogether, unconvinced their bounty is worth the bedlam. Others hit the wall, refusing to leave, tearing open plastic eggs and inhaling chocolate. Either way your afternoon’s shot.
It’s so unfair watching a toddler slowly stopping to pick up theirs first egg just as their older brother sweeps in and scoops it up. Some kids don’t get the concept of sharing.
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Oh yeah, the sibling thing can be brutal. It’s hard to watch, that’s for sure.
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We only had my sister, my three cousins, and me hunting eggs back in the day. My girls only had the two of them. I don’t remember any community hunts. Sounds like bedlam now at those things. Fun to read your take on it all. 🙂
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I kinda sound like a grouchy old lady but whatever. 😆
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Reminds me of the scene at the end of “Steel Magnolias”. We never stayed around for the big community event after church. Instead we had our own smaller version in my sister’s backyard. Those are some great memories 🙂
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Man, that hunt in Steel Magnolias gave me hives. All that space, all those kids…I like the sound of your tradition better. 🙂
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Me too! I remember being worried as I watched it. I just knew someone was going to get hurt.
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Son is petrified of the community ones. So we do our own, He enjoys them still. No competition. No pressure. No pushy parents. No tears. Just love how you describe it. Genius.
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And I love that you’ve created something that works best for your son! Community ones can be a terrible fit for some kids, and who wants childhood memories of that??
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Huh. We never had egg hunts when I was little, and so I missed out on “the way we were.” Reading this confirms my decision never to have children, too. 🙂 Although, I’m suspecting it is more the parents in all of this, than the children. A favorite blogger I once followed (sadly she is no longer posting) had some similar posts regarding trick-or-treating in her upscale neighborhood. It was also chilling. As a confirmed introvert, reading this just made me need to go take a nap.
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There’s a lot of “oh, aren’t they adorable?” at these things so yeah, I think the adult factor is high. I’m a fellow introvert but I work with a youth group and they’d been obligated to volunteer so there we were… 😳
And yes, I did come home and pass out cold.
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Geez, how did I ever survive childhood?? I’ll blog about my rememberences of Easters Past on my own, and save your comment space! I admit to laughing furiously, but that was partially because, being a never was parent, I could watch from the sidelines and bean the more aggressive kids who were trying to hog ALL the eggs, with a rotten one or two. On the down low of course. I mean those kids are only learning lessons designed to survive in their version of a future, aren’t they? (OH! You’ll get full credit for starting this line of thinking. 😉 )
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I do not ever once remember attending a community Easter egg hunt like this when I was a kid. Did they even hold them? Maybe other churches did, I don’t know, but it feels like a more recent phenomenon to me. My own kids had group stuff in playschool but other than that? We avoided these things like the plague. lol
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And so it goes, as every activity designed FOR children by ADULTS. Fortunately, our daughter had little interest in these and we were not inclined to push her in the name of “developing social skills.”
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Yes! It’s like we pass some marker and forget what kids truly love then end up bleeding grownup all over their parties and presents and egg hunts. Ugh.
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When I was a little one, egg hunting was a family event, not a community event. Less stress. Sometimes bigger is not better.
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Oh yes, we did one every year at home. My dad would hide the eggs and we had such fun finding them. You hit the nail on the head here — it’s the community egg hunts that annoy me.
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Funny, but true, I suspect. And now I know the rest of the story.
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It’s an odd tradition when you stand back and really think about it. 😆
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yes, it never quite goes exactly as planned and can turn into a children’s version of a Black Friday sale.
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THIS. That’s a perfect description. We had an international student (teen) helping at the hunt yesterday and I can only imagine what it looked like to her… 😳
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As you paint it, a very unwelcome scenario.
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It’s in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. There were lots of smiling parents there — I just can’t take the sad littles.
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I can see that.
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