Random Easter poll

[Tanaqui]

I think I covered all the bases with that first question!

 

Also, a bonus article on Easter :)

 

Happy Easter! Here Come the Witches

Obligatory XKCD

[eternalsummer]

We are not religious and we don't celebrate secular Easter either.

[Heatherwith4]

Plastic only. Hiding real eggs seems a little risky. What if we don't find them all?

Edited April 15, 2017 by heatherwith3

[Farrar]

Hiding real eggs is asking for trouble.

[Farrar]

Real eggs ? Plastic eggs ? What ??!!

 

We hide chocolate eggs.

 

Ha! I wouldn't hide those either! They're for eating right away!

 

Do you not hard boil eggs and decorate them in Aussie? Or have the cheap plastic break apart eggs? They can hold candy or tiny treats like stickers inside.

[Paige]

As a kid my mom wanted us to hide plastic only because of this one time when a real egg didn't get found during the Easter hunt. And it was gross and smelly by the time it was found. I hide plastic only too. Sometimes the kids want to hide real ones and I make them do it only outside and they must count them, remember where they hid them, and can't quit until they get them all back. 

[Innisfree]

When we were kids my mom would start blowing eggs weeks before Easter. She'd clean, dry and boil the shells, and those were the ones that were colored, filled and hidden.

 

I tried to do the same when my kids were little, but they could never bear to part with the decorated, crumbling real eggshells after Easter. After a year or two of that I decreed we were switching to plastic for egg hunts, and dyeing only hard-boiled eggs for immediate consumption.

[IfIOnly]

Christian, religious only celebrations

 

Some (most?) of the "secular" traditions are actually rooted in other religions like paganism and their holy days like celebrating the Goddess of Spring.  I may be off on some off my facts. It's been a long time since I read into it.

 

 

http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/ancient-pagan-origins-easter-001571

[gardenmom5]

I chatted with a woman who had free range chickens.  . . . she learned origin of the custom of hiding eggs  .  . . . because the darn free range chicken laid them wherever the heck they wanted to.

[Farrar]

Yes to decorating real eggs, but those you display.

 

No to the plastic eggs. 

 

Having an Easter egg hunt without actually hunting for chocolate eggs seems mean, lol

 

Surely no-one hunts for hard boiled eggs ?!

 

The hunt is the fun. But most of them hunt for the plastic eggs and there are treats in the eggs - jelly beans, for example. You can refill them. And then the kids play with them after and do their own hunts. At least, that's relatively common.

 

Some people hunt for the hard boiled ones though. It really is about the hunt. Some big Easter egg hunts give a prize for finding the most eggs but don't put anything in them though. Sometimes people use the colors on the eggs to color code the levels (as in, the blue eggs are only for children under 5 so that the big kids don't nab them all).

[gardenmom5]

we don't do secular easter traditions.

I do put out a bowl of easter candy and chocolate bunnies the day before.  I don't do individual baskets.

Edited April 15, 2017 by gardenmom5

[bettyandbob]

When I was a kid we had to hunt for real eggs. Never chocolate, never plastic filled with candy. My mom made us look until all were found.Then we had to egg salad for multiple meals for days. 

 

My mom was offended when I said I didn't like her eggs and said I wanted candy like other people had. 

 

My kids have colored real eggs. They have never looked for real eggs. The only eggs hidden for our dc have been plastic filled with candy. 

[Guest]

At then end of the Paschal Divine Liturgy, usually celebrated starting at midnight, everyone at church gets a red-dyed egg..  (Two families in our parish have chickens and as we have not eaten eggs since the beginning of Lent, there are a LOT of eggs!)

 

The priest hands each person a red egg, and then everyone starts cracking them against each other's.  The red represents Christ's sacrifice, the egg the tomb, and the cracking of the egg, the resurrection.  All the time this is going on, the choir is singing super happy resurrection songs.  It's just a blast.  Then we go break the Lenten/Holy Week fast together and we all get home at about 4 in the morning,  

 

The kids at church have a big egg hunt--plastic--during the barbecue in the afternoon after Agape Vespers.  

[Tanaqui]

My mother did lose an egg one year! Ever since then, she made a list.

[Mbelle]

Growing up we did easter egg hunts, both real and plastic and other candy.  DH family only did baskets.  

At our home we follow his tradition, because we are too lazy to hide eggs.

We are going to family for lunch tomorrow, they hide eggs so we will do that too for little one.

We are Christian and mostly focus on that, but gosh eggs and chocolate are fun for us too!

[Tanaqui]

We are Christian and mostly focus on that, but gosh eggs and chocolate are fun for us too!

 

As an atheist, that's why I celebrate both Easter and Christmas! The secular observances are fun - and honestly, I like Christmas carols a lot. I'm still singing them, and I've been known to dye eggs in August. (While singing Christmas carols....)

 

[Jean in Newcastle]

I voted BUNNY! BUNNY! BUNNY! but we actually only have two bunnies in the house:  a Mini lop and an American (both different breeds of rabbit). 

Edited April 15, 2017 by Jean in Newcastle

[Mergath]

We're non-Christians, and we don't celebrate Easter, either religious or secular. I don't have anything against it, I just didn't need another holiday where we end up with a bunch of candy.

[Jean in Newcastle]

[MercyA]

Jean! Two buns!! SQUEE!!!!!!  :001_wub:

 

(Sorry, I got a little excited there. They are darling.)

[MercyA]

Thanks for the interesting article, Tanaqui! I love reading about folklore.

 

We celebrate Christ's resurrection at church. I love saying, "He is risen!" to fellow church members and hearing, "He is risen, indeed!" in response.

 

We also do an indoor plastic egg hunt here at home, with clues leading from one egg to the next. I put little prizes and jelly beans in the eggs, and at the end is my daughter's Easter basket. This year it has fierce-looking dragon figures in it. How's that for cuddly and cute?

 

When I was little we hunted for real hard-boiled eggs we colored. At the same time we searched for our Easter baskets, which usually held a chocolate bunny, malted chocolate eggs, jelly beans, and something small like a coloring book.

 

Most holidays, including Christmas, have pagan origins. I respect those who follow their conscience and choose to abstain. We celebrate the Americanized versions of the holidays as part of our cultural and family traditions.

 

ETA: We don't do the Easter bunny thing (or Santa, or the tooth fairy).

Edited April 16, 2017 by MercyA

[Sherry in OH]

Jean - your bunnies are cute.   Several eastern cottontails visit our yard daily.  

 

The town my parents live in still uses real eggs for its egg hunt.  Several organizations sponsor egg hunts In our town.  All of them are for plastic eggs and all of the sponsors ask that after the hunt the children empty the eggs into their baskets and return the empty eggs for reuse the next year.  

 

 

[Catwoman]

Yes to decorating real eggs, but those you display.

 

No to the plastic eggs.

 

Having an Easter egg hunt without actually hunting for chocolate eggs seems mean, lol

 

Surely no-one hunts for hard boiled eggs ?!

We hide Easter baskets, Easter gifts, chocolate eggs, and the plastic eggs. We put money in the plastic eggs or IOU tickets for things like computer and video games that get ordered online so there's no package to wrap.

 

My ds would not have been excited about hunting for hard boiled eggs, no matter how nicely they were decorated. I know families that do that, but hard boiled eggs aren't much incentive unless you really love hard boiled eggs!

[zoobie]

Golly.

 

The things you learn!

You know how us Americans love to hunt things. ;)

 

We hunted those nasty hard candy coated, marshmallow-y? eggs when I was little. Dyed eggs were display then eaten. My kids hunt the plastic ones.

[Guest]

I answered Other. :)

 

We are Christian, and we do celebrate Easter as Christians and we still have the Easter bunny tradition for the kids (although I am struggling with that one more and more- I don't like lying to my kids about the Bunny or Santa etc.-  but another topic for another time). We usually dye eggs and then hide them for the kids to find. But this year I am just not feeling it, so I'm skipping that part. They're getting a basket of candy tomorrow and some confetti eggs. I just don't feel like dealing with the mess of dying eggs this year. I blame the barrage of illnesses we've dealt with the last few weeks. Oh, and too many homeschool science projects. ; ) I think the wonder of dying eggs dissipates when you're constantly making rainbow colored volcanoes and potions at your dining room table every other week! 

Edited April 15, 2017 by texasmom33

[Rebel Yell]

Christian family... Other. My kids are older, so no more hiding eggs.

 

We never did that in our own, but when younger we did bring them to churches or community egg hunts.

 

No baskets, either. Everyone gets two new pairs of Old Navy flip flops. And we buy leftover candy on sale Monday.

 

We have weird traditions, but we love them!

 

BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY because I have three girls?

[LMD]

We're Christians, but we celebrate easter with a family lunch. There's usually chocolate. Sometimes a hunt with chocolate eggs. Whatever we feel like putting together (which this year, is minimal)

[Tanaqui]

I don't like lying to my kids about the Bunny or Santa etc.-  but another topic for another time

 

We never did the Easter bunny as kids. For the girls, we did Santa as pretend - we all like to pretend there is a Santa, but we know he isn't really real.

 

That was a good compromise, and worked well for us.

[Tanaqui]

Oh, good, kand. I'm glad somebody does the hubby :P

[Chelli]

Christian here. No religious (not celebrated as a religious holiday in our faith) or secular celebrations mainly because I'm too tired and broke to mess with baskets, egg hunts, and copious amounts of chocolate.

 

We will do cascarones with the kids at church after services, but that takes less than five minutes and no mess or clean up on my part.  :hurray:

 

 

[rebcoola]

We are Christian who basically do it all Easter is the biggest celebration of the year at our house.  We do a Messianic Seder so yes we hide the Afikomen.  We do Sunday morning service and have several traditions.  We also do an Easter dinner party with friends that includes an Egg hunt (plastic)  The only thing we don't do is pretend the Easter bunny hid the eggs or basket.  

[purpleowl]

I voted "real and plastic," but that's a bit misleading. We do an egg hunt with friends that's all plastic eggs (filled), and the kids will take turns hiding and hunting for the plastic eggs (empty) for a couple of weeks on either side of Easter.

 

But then we dye real eggs the day before Easter, and the Easter Bunny hides the basket containing those eggs when he comes to deliver candy baskets. (Easter Bunny is an "isn't it fun to pretend" thing at our house, as is Santa.) So the kids just have to find the basket of real eggs, not each individual one. Which is good, because they've already lost a few plastic eggs around the house this year...

[foxbridgeacademy]

When the kids were little we did plastic eggs at our house and real ones that they had decorated at my mom's, they got $$ for all the real ones they brought back.  No worries about missed eggs, the dogs take care of those. My mom fussed at me when she came to visit us on easter since we only had plastic eggs.  

 

As the kids have gotten older she has switched to plastic eggs with pieces of paper with $$ amounts written on them, the higher dollar ones are really difficult to find (camo design, hidden in places you don't want to stick your hand), it's more like Easter Egg hunt EXTREME, but you could walk away with as much as $20.

[Guest]

Oh, good, kand. I'm glad somebody does the hubby :P

My hubby says that is better than chocolate eggs.

[Farrar]

We never did the Easter bunny as kids. For the girls, we did Santa as pretend - we all like to pretend there is a Santa, but we know he isn't really real.

 

That was a good compromise, and worked well for us.

 

That's exactly what we always did. Easter Bunny is a fun game and so was Santa. When they were little, my kids definitely knew they were pretend, but liked to pretend they were real. 

[Guest]

We don't hide eggs, real or plastic, at our house, though my kids have participated in egg hunts elsewhere some years. I never went out of my way for it. We do individual baskets which my kids look forward to. I even have a basket for DD, who turns 20 to orrow.

 

What I really love is the Pysanky eggs (although those are actually a Christmas tradition, I believe, in Ukraine). I haven't made any new ones in several years, but I love to display my Pysanka.

 

ETA: I never emphasized the bunny. It's so goofy as mythical ideas go. My kids knew the idea of the Easter Bunny, but I don't think they ever believed it was really a thing.

Edited April 15, 2017 by Quill

[Pawz4me]

Not religious -- other.

 

Our kids are grown. When they and their cousins were younger MIL always did an Easter egg hunt for them. She put money and candy in the eggs.

 

We never got into Easter baskets.

 

I was just watching a real live (wild) bunny munching grass in our back yard. :)

[umsami]

Third religion, but often times my kids get to egg hunt with my parents.  They hide plastic eggs, often with coins in them...and the kids dye eggs....which are often made into deviled eggs or egg salad.  Chocolate eggs (my Mom's favorite candy) are given, not hidden, due to the cockroaches on steroids known as palmetto bugs as well as evil ants that live in Florida.

 

Easter bunny is cute and harmless, but my kids favorite was an egg hunt that had real bunnies for the kids to hold and pet.   They couldn't care less if these bunnies had chocolate on them. :)

Edited April 16, 2017 by umsami

[mamaraby]

We're non-Christians, and we don't celebrate Easter, either religious or secular. I don't have anything against it, I just didn't need another holiday where we end up with a bunch of candy.

Same here.

[Seasider]

When we were kids my mom would start blowing eggs weeks before Easter. She'd clean, dry and boil the shells, and those were the ones that were colored, filled and hidden.

 

I tried to do the same when my kids were little, but they could never bear to part with the decorated, crumbling real eggshells after Easter. After a year or two of that I decreed we were switching to plastic for egg hunts, and dyeing only hard-boiled eggs for immediate consumption.

She boiled the shells after blowing out the egg? Did that kind of... sterilize? sanitize? something?...the shells so they could be kept to decorate without getting funky?

 

Years ago I washed the blown out shell with soap and water, but I usually lost a few that way. Boiling seems easier.

[Seasider]

At then end of the Paschal Divine Liturgy, usually celebrated starting at midnight, everyone at church gets a red-dyed egg.. (Two families in our parish have chickens and as we have not eaten eggs since the beginning of Lent, there are a LOT of eggs!)

 

The priest hands each person a red egg, and then everyone starts cracking them against each other's. The red represents Christ's sacrifice, the egg the tomb, and the cracking of the egg, the resurrection. All the time this is going on, the choir is singing super happy resurrection songs. It's just a blast. Then we go break the Lenten/Holy Week fast together and we all get home at about 4 in the morning,

 

The kids at church have a big egg hunt--plastic--during the barbecue in the afternoon after Agape Vespers.

This sounds wonderful!

[AimeeM]

Plastic ONLY.

 

Ever.

 

Period.

 

Forever imprinted in my mind (and my nose) is the year our then-toddler middle son put a real egg in his lego box (presumably to "hide it"). We didn't find it for months. Can you imagine? I mean, can you really? I had put his legos atop his very tall dresser, because his younger brother had a habit of mouthing such things, went to get it down (again, MONTHS LATER), opened it -- and BAM. The entire house smelled for... forever. And ever. And ever. 

 

Never again. We dye real eggs, then we eat them. We hide PLASTIC eggs. 

[heartlikealion]

We don't know our traditions LOL. We've hidden eggs a couple times. It's hit and miss with us. Like one year it rained outside maybe we hid some in the house? Plastic. This year I got rid of the plastic as soon as I could. I didn't want to deal with them and I repackaged them for ds' school egg hunt (put chocolate in them. It's not Easter without chocolate lol)

 

Yes to decorating real eggs, but those you display.

 

No to the plastic eggs. 

 

Having an Easter egg hunt without actually hunting for chocolate eggs seems mean, lol

 

Surely no-one hunts for hard boiled eggs ?!

 

Ds came home with a pile of real eggs from his school egg hunt. I thought what in the world... why did the school even say you could send real ones LOL. I know they might not have been outside long, but I imagine they were left at room temp. in the classroom all day.
 

[abba12]

Always chocolate eggs in Australia. Hidden the night before, theyre unlikely to get gotten at by animals

[thessa516]

 

 

We dyed hard boiled eggs today.  Tonight, we will set out Easter baskets, empty.  After the kids go to bed, the baskets will be filled with colored tulle/netting (I am so over easter grass) and then a selection of spring gifts like sidewalk chalk etc will be placed in them, along with a little bit of candy in plastic eggs and a chocolate bunny.  

 

 

Slightly off-topic: About three years ago I had an epic meltdown around Christmas. Why, you ask? Because I was still finding and vacuuming up plastic easter grass. My sweet DH has made sure that the evil stuff has never crossed our threshold since. I've switched to tissue paper and it has saved my sanity. When the kids want to tease me about cleaning up the house, they'll mention the infamous easter grass fiasco.

[Paige]

Slightly off-topic: About three years ago I had an epic meltdown around Christmas. Why, you ask? Because I was still finding and vacuuming up plastic easter grass. My sweet DH has made sure that the evil stuff has never crossed our threshold since. I've switched to tissue paper and it has saved my sanity. When the kids want to tease me about cleaning up the house, they'll mention the infamous easter grass fiasco.

 

Instead of grass, I use new socks, underwear, or t-shirts. I hate that grass! The worst is when the cat eats it and you hope it passes. We tried the candy grass a couple of times, and it's better if the pets find it, but still makes a mess and doesn't taste good at all. 

[Junie]

We only hide plastic eggs at our house.  The kids like to hide them for each other.

 

When my dad was growing up, they hid real eggs.  My grandfather hid one in the toilet tank and forgot about it.  For a long time.  The only thing that saved the house from reeking was that the toilet tank was full of cold water.

 

 

ETA:   :ack2:

Edited April 16, 2017 by Junie

[emmaluv+2more]

We fall kinda all over the place.  I grew up christian and my children have been raised christian.  I am now agnostic.  Even so, we never made a very big thing out of Easter.  My kids have done egg hunts (plastic, elsewhere most years, but never at home).  I never did the basket thing, but they do each get a small gift (no candy).  My ex-mil does plastic egg hunts and baskets for them every year.  I sort of hate it.

 

We do dye real eggs and eat them.

 

I never advertised the Easter Bunny either, but they have heard of it out and about.  I don't think any of my children over the age of 3 really believed such a bunny existed.  It really isn't difficult to tell that it's a guy in a costume, after all.  That, of course, kind of triggered disbelief in other things such as Santa and tooth fairies.  I go with the flow as far as such things are concerned.  As soon as they ask I reveal the truth.

 

(And my kids never sat on laps of any mythical, gift-giving beings.  I find that a bit creepy and they were always scared.  I'm always shocked at the long lines.)

[mumto2]

Real eggs ? Plastic eggs ? What ??!!

 

We hide chocolate eggs.

Weird question....In Australia what colour are store bought eggs? America generally has white ones which are far more fun to decorate imo. UK has brown ones normally. I can get white and blue ones from a friend but I would wipe out her supply if I wanted to decorate any quantity.

 

We hide both chocolate eggs and plastic eggs filled with candy or toys.

[swellmomma]

We don't hide eggs, usually I fill a basket for each kid and put it up where the dogs can't reach. This year the budget was teeny tiny. The kids opted to choose a special easter treat early and forgo the baskets completely.