Random Easter poll

[Renthead Mommy]

 

Surely no-one hunts for hard boiled eggs ?!

 

I have never known of anyone doing a family egg hunt with anything other than real eggs. (Except for one family that had egg allergy kids.)

 

Plastic eggs have always been for organized hunts like school, lodge, club things. But usually they don't want you to put chocolate in those because it will melt in the sun in some areas.

[heartlikealion]

I have never known of anyone doing a family egg hunt with anything other than real eggs. (Except for one family that had egg allergy kids.)

 

Plastic eggs have always been for organized hunts like school, lodge, club things. But usually they don't want you to put chocolate in those because it will melt in the sun in some areas.

 

This was a concern of mine. I put some reese's mini peanut cups in the deep freeze and took them out the morning of ds' egg hunt. In a town egg hunt we went to they used those tiny toosie rolls. Dh said they just get soft, not really melty. I don't know, but they seemed to do fine despite the heat.

[SKL]

It is my family's tradition that we boil, color, hide, and hunt "real eggs."  Baskets and eggs are hidden at night and found in the morning.

 

Once my kids learned that the "bunny" wasn't real, I started letting them each assemble and hide their sister's basket.  But I hide the eggs.  I keep count of them and hopefully remember my hiding places.  We don't stop looking until they are all found.  :)

 

It's fun, coming up with cute ideas for hiding the eggs just hard enough that the kids can find them.  For wee kids, the eggs are out in the open, and as they get older, they are hidden in less and less obvious (but still not unthinkable) places.  Older kids know not to "find" the obvious ones if there are younger kids.

 

This year my kids made a bunch, but I think I will only hide some of them.  It's overkill to try to find so many hiding places.

 

My folks never did plastic eggs for the hunt, and I can't get on board with them either.

[SKL]

Oh, and we hide the eggs indoors only.  Outdoors the raccoons would make short work of them.  :P

[JessReplanted]

We are Christian and hide plastic eggs, but I would vote "Not really into the Bunny." My youngest has only heard about the bunny from one of the other kids who still thinks it is exciting.

Edited April 16, 2017 by JessReplanted

[SKL]

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:

 

The toilet tank?!  Have to say that idea hasn't ever crossed my mind, LOL.  So far I've only hidden the eggs in a couple of rooms (not the bathroom), to increase the chances of the kids finding them all quickly.

 

[Carol in Cal.]

I hate hardboiled eggs so much that if they are on a salad I send it back.

So we don't do those.

 

And, they have those plastic eggs at the Easter egg hunt after church on Easter, so in that sense we do them.

 

But at our house, it was chocolate eggs and jelly beans and various other treats in an Easter basket AND hidden here and there.  So I voted other.  And bunnies, because we love bunnies here.

[bookbard]

Also from Australia, only heard about using boiled eggs from someone from Europe. Over here, all eggs are chocolate eggs. Having said that, we never did an Easter hunt when we were kids - they were just on the kitchen table waiting for us in the morning (or, as I said in another thread, sometimes just a block of cooking chocolate!) We had an Easter egg hunt at my parents' place y'day with the cousins, lots of small chocolate eggs; today I just had a big Kinder surprise egg each and tied a piece of string to it then wrapped it round furniture etc so they had to follow their string to find their treat. 

[scoutingmom]

On mobile so can't see poll. We generally colour hard boiled eggs (has even happened a day or two after easter) and eat for breakfast for a few days. Kids get a quick hunt inside but it is generally pretty easy because the easter bunny leaves some 'droppings' along the way. Yup, the easter bunny leaves the tiny wrapped easter eggs as bunny scat in our house. We have at times had names on the prizes... no taking the wrong one. Prize is usually a chocolate bunny.

 

We don't do outside hunts because some years there is still snow! Or mud or rain....

 

When i was a kid there was a brand of nylons sold packaged in a plastic egg... i think calle L'eggs or something like that. Our Easter treats were usually in those. I have wondered if their sales went up aroung easter.

 

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[Rosie_0801]

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.

 

 

When I was a kid, they were mostly white eggs.

 

Now they are all regulation brown.

[The Girls' Mom]

I voted on what we used to do, because everyone here has outgrown the hunt.  

 

We always did plastic eggs, and the easter bunny came to visit early Sunday morning (and brought baskets) when the kids were small.  The egg hunt lasted until a year or so ago.  Usually we did the hunt over at the in-law's house, and the kids could spend forever hunting eggs.  (lots of yard with trees/plants/etc. to hide eggs well)

This year, I threw a chocolate bunny at them earlier in the week, and we've been well stocked in Peeps.  (which get toasted over an open flame, or "exploded" in the microwave before consumption).  

[Meriwether]

We are Christian, so that is the main focus of Easter. We also do Easter baskets and egg hunts but no Easter bunny. We dye eggs, but we mostly hide plastic eggs with no candy in them. We do serious egg hunts - no drawers or cupboards, but everything else is fair game. We've unscrewed vents from the wall, hollowed out an apple, etc. to hide eggs. We've even put an egg in my mom's coffee cup before. Good times.

[Carrie12345]

Growing up, it was only real eggs.  As an adult, I'm much more obsessive about food safety, so we went plastic.

 

We do BUNNY, BUNNY, BUNNY, but I'm looking forward to being done with that stage.  It's been 19 years.  The bunny is tired!  (So is Santa, and the Tooth Fairy.  And I still have one who hasn't lost his first tooth yet.  :toetap05: )

[Innisfree]

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.

 

Boiled because the dye won't attach properly to the shell otherwise. Or, at least, that's what I remember.

 

The sterilization is a fringe benefit. 😉

[Bluegoat]

We're Christian.  We celebrate Easter as a religious festival, we also hunt for chocolate eggs hidden by the bunny.

 

I think I may have answered the poll wrong, I said we hunt for "real" eggs, by which I meant chocolate eggs.  We do dye eggs, usually the parish kids do it on Holy Saturday and then pass them out after the Sunday morning service. 

 

It's interesting about the witches in Sweden, but I'd note that fear of witches is more an early modern period thing than a medieval thing in Europe.

 

ETA - we do have baskets, the kids reuse them.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Bluegoat

[Bluegoat]

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

I think this is the case in Canada too.  I've never heard of people hding real eggs - I'm sure some must but I think it's uncommon.

[maize]

Plastic, but we like to die eggs as well. I just don't hide those.

 

I hide the plastic ones because I can designate a color for each child so they all get the same number of eggs and the Big Kids' eggs get hidden in harder spots. Actually sometimes the kids hide the eggs for each other; last year the boys hid eggs for the girls and vice versa.

 

No Easter bunny here.

[historically accurate]

It wouldn't let me vote - weird.

 

I'm Christian, but Easter isn't a huge holiday in my household. 

 

Growing up, we dyed and hunted those eggs. There were 2 of us and we each had to fill our egg carton, so none of them got left behind.

 

I'm lazy. Only 1 of my kids like hard boiled eggs, so we don't dye eggs. We did a few times when the kids were little, but it was hit or miss. I will take them to community egg hunts, but we don't do that here at home. The three of them share one basket; it usually has a movie and a piece of chocolate each. This year, it has an outside ball, giant sidewalk chalk, a candy bar each, and an egg stuffed with a dollar; it was cheaper this way. I've never pushed the bunny, but all of my kids say the basket comes from him. 

 

They'll probably get some candy or a small egg hunt at Grandma & Grandpa's house today - we're having lunch with them.

[Word Nerd]

We've done both but probably won't this year because the kids are too old to be interested.

 

I thought most people who celebrate Easter with eggs dye or decorate real eggs and then hide them, so it's interesting that some here are so opposed to the idea or unfamiliar with it. It's definitely still the norm where I live. Not sure what the big deal is. We never ate them, even as a kid, and we still got plenty of chocolate and other candy.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Word Nerd

[cintinative]

So growing up we always hid the hard boiled eggs. My dad must have kept careful track of where he hid them because--eeeew.

 

Mine are really too old for egg hunts now but when we did them we used plastic eggs because forgotten hard boiled eggs are no fun to find later.

 

We used to hide a basket but this year no.  I did buy candy. We were going to dye eggs but like a prior poster (Texasmama??) said, life has been too crazy and I am just not motivated for the mess. My kids don't eat hard-boiled eggs anyway. 

[Violet Crown]

We hide boiled eggs and cascarones. We devil the eggs and assault beloved family members with the cascarones.

 

Chocolate eggs go in the baskets.

 

The Easter Bunny, like Santa, persists as a means of deflection. "You know where you should hide an egg this year?" "Why don't you send your suggestions to the Easter Bunny." "Can we have Cadbury chocolate eggs in the baskets this year?" "Take it up with Mr. Bun."

[Jan in SC]

We always went to my grandparents for Easter. Our Easter basket was filled with plastic eggs and candy, but we did hunted the dyed, hard boiled ones. My mom only hid about a dozen of them in my grandparent's living room for the two of us. She was much more concerned with getting four adults and two kids showered and dressed on time for church because my grandparents only had one bathroom.

 

My kids usually went to an Easter egg hunt at church, and those were with the plastic, candy filled eggs. They get an Easter basket filled with candy and toys. The older they've gotten, the lazier I've gotten. This year I just used candy and gift cards. I just walked in their rooms and handed them to them. We aren't even making it to church this year because my oldest ds has a show. I think our Easter lunch will be at a waffle truck. 😂😂😂

[Hannah]

I've never heard of filled plastic eggs before - its a clever idea!

 

My youngest is 13 and this is the first year we've not had nieces and nephews around to do a Easter hunt.  When we do, we mostly hide marshmallow eggs (I see they're imported into the UK for South African expats, so don't know if they're known elsewhere.  https://www.makro.co.za/groceries-and-toiletries/beacon-/br-marshmallow-eggs-/br-1-x-48-s--8215EA  They have a yellow marshmallow 'yolk' with white around it and covered in a thin layer of chocolate.  It fits into the palm of one's hand.

The budget has normally been a big box of marshmallow eggs and a hollow egg and a chocolate bunny for each child to find.

Ours is always hidden in the garden, with the parents getting up at dawn to hide them - this is how my parents did it for us as well.  I remember my dad having a list of where he hid them - he always did a VERY thorough job of hiding the eggs.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Hannah

[winterbaby]

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

 

Yep! (My ancient browser couldn't cope with that page but yes to the general point.)

 

To me it's a beautiful thing: harmless aspects of my ancestors' culture preserved through Christianization. "Secular" aspects of celebration reinforce the religious aspect for me, and ultimately are an extension of the religious aspect.

 

[Tanaqui]

What you said sounded a bit like Cadbury eggs, Hannah, but looking at the link, not so much.

 

I personally don't like Cadbury eggs, but I love their commercial. I was watching TV with my mother, and we saw that commercial, and I said "I love that commercial!" and she replied "You've said that every year for the past 23 years", and she's right. I just love that commercial.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Tanaqui

[Dmmetler]

cascarones!

 

Since both DD's Birthday and Christmas are in fall/Winter, Easter is also when she tends to get stuff for Spring/summer play. So this year, her basket has new warm-weather clothes to accommodate a practically 6 in growth spurt.

Edited April 16, 2017 by dmmetler

[Hannah]

What you said sounded a bit like Cadbury eggs, Hannah, but looking at the link, not so much.

 

I personally don't like Cadbury eggs, but I love their commercial. I was watching TV with my mother, and we saw that commercial, and I said "I love that commercial!" and she replied "You've said that every year for the past 23 years", and she's right. I just love that commercial.

 

That is a cute commercial Tanaqui!  The Beacon eggs are a smooth marshmallow, not runny praline.

[Jann in TX]

Christian-- we do egg hunts as a 'cultural tradition'.

 

When I was little we did the real-egg thing and an Easter basket.  Lots of egg-salad too...

 

We have only used plastic eggs with our daughters (bad memory of an unfound egg when I was little).

When our big girls were at home we started a tradition of 'money' eggs.  DH and I would stash any quarters, nickels and dimes into a big jar during the year and by Easter we had plenty to go around.  We had color coded 'large eggs' with a special treat for each girl-- a few years we even had Sea World or Six Flags season passes in the special eggs because we had saved so much change.  Now with chronic debit card use the coin jar is no more...

 

Because youngest dd is so much younger, our big girls hunted eggs even into their 20's!

In fact dd 26 is coming over today and will hunt eggs (chocolate this time!) with dd 15.

 

A few years ago the girls hid HUGE eggs for DH and I to find.. we live on 12 acres... it took a LONG time-- but it was so much fun!

 

 

[winterbaby]

cascarones!

 

Since both DD's Birthday and Christmas are in fall/Winter, Easter is also when she tends to get stuff for Spring/summer play. So this year, her basket has new warm-weather clothes to accommodate a practically 6 in growth spurt.

 

That's a great idea. I should really rethink my assumption that it's all about the candy - even as I've moved to make the baskets much more modest, it's just not healthy.

 

[Dmmetler]

That's a great idea. I should really rethink my assumption that it's all about the candy - even as I've moved to make the baskets much more modest, it's just not healthy.

 

The downside is that it can set up a discrepancy when your kid's best friend got a Chocolate bunny, and your kid got a new bike. I've heard a few comments about not making Easter a "2nd Christmas"-from people who have a kid with a Spring/Early Summer Birthday to get that stuff.

[luuknam]

And... we lost an egg. And I only hid brightly colored plastic ones in our yard. Last time I did that (a couple of years ago I think, with the exact same eggs) it was too easy, iirc, but somehow this time I managed to do a much better job hiding them - I needed to help them find the last 6 or so (I think I made it relatively easy last time because they were younger, and last year we did it inside, so that was different).

[lexi]

We dye real eggs and then hide them once. Then into the trash they go! Yucky! (And I have kids with egg allergies so I want them gone)

We also hide plastic eggs. No chocolate eggs for us due to dairy allergies.

My kids get coloring books and art projects for Easter. From us and not from the Easter bunny because we don't really do the Easter bunny thing.

We try to make easer less about the food since I have kids with so many allergies.

And as christians we try to focus on the resurrection.

But man, food allergies have made me dread all major holidays. They are all about food! I'm so tired of my kids being (unintentionally) excluded because they are allergic to everything. I hate hate hate food allergies.

[maize]

And... we lost an egg. And I only hid brightly colored plastic ones in our yard. Last time I did that (a couple of years ago I think, with the exact same eggs) it was too easy, iirc, but somehow this time I managed to do a much better job hiding them - I needed to help them find the last 6 or so (I think I made it relatively easy last time because they were younger, and last year we did it inside, so that was different).

I usually set aside one egg of each color in case someone can't find all of theirs--I can hide the extra and let them find it.

 

Ours will be filled with jelly beans and small chocolate eggs this year.

[73349]

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.

 

We decorate empty egg shells, but those are in a bowl on the table. Tomorrow's art activity is to take them outside, fill them with tempera paint and let DS throw them at a paper-covered easel. It's become a tradition.

 

We boil some eggs to eat but don't dye those. I made some deviled eggs.

 

I have about a dozen painted wooden eggs and a few plastic eggs that I hide (inside the house only). This year, two of the plastic eggs contained chocolate eggs, two contained coins, one had hard candy, and one had tiny stuffed chicks. And the trail of eggs led to DS's bed, where the basket had further treats, attended by his old stuffed bunny. No Easter grass--I hate that stuff. We do not do the public egg hunts.

 

We didn't "do" the E.B., but we do like bunnies and DS once (either age 2 or 3) insisted on going to meet the one he saw when we were at a mall. I was floored--he was a firm stranger-hater.

Edited April 16, 2017 by whitehawk

[wendyroo]

Plastic, but we like to die eggs as well. I just don't hide those.

 

I hide the plastic ones because I can designate a color for each child so they all get the same number of eggs and the Big Kids' eggs get hidden in harder spots. Actually sometimes the kids hide the eggs for each other; last year the boys hid eggs for the girls and vice versa.

 

No Easter bunny here.

 

This is pretty much what we do as well.

 

On Saturday the kids spend a couple hours decorating lots of hard boiled eggs - complete with special dyes, rubber bands, crayons/markers, dripped birthday candle wax, etc.  It is messy fun, and I fully expect to have to throw all the kids directly in the bath afterwards.

 

On Saturday evening, DH and I hide 12 plastic eggs filled with candy and coins for each child.  Each child has one designated color of egg, so the older kids know to leave the little kids' more obvious eggs alone.  As I hide the eggs, DH makes notes about the trickier hiding spots.

 

On Easter morning, the kids get a letter from the Easter Bunny letting them know what color eggs each is looking for and the parameters of the hunt (only on the first floor, you might need to open drawers and cabinets, but you don't have to move anything inside, remember not to touch any eggs that aren't your color, etc).  Then they start hunting, eating the candy they find and putting their eggs in egg cartons.  When they have filled their egg carton, I get their basket for them.  Baskets have a chocolate bunny, a bit more candy, sidewalk chalk and a small toy (~$5) or a book.  This year I also added "certificates" for zoo camp this summer.

 

The kids eat all of their candy for breakfast (I have no interest in candy lingering for days on end), we eat hard boiled eggs for lunch and a slightly special Easter dinner.

 

Wendy

[winterbaby]

The downside is that it can set up a discrepancy when your kid's best friend got a Chocolate bunny, and your kid got a new bike. I've heard a few comments about not making Easter a "2nd Christmas"-from people who have a kid with a Spring/Early Summer Birthday to get that stuff.

 

Well we're not in much of a position to do major gifts in any case. Not that I would give her tube socks or something, but I'm thinking modest things that would fit in the basket, like art supplies.

 

But - "second Christmas" lol - always strange to me how many people have no clue that in the Christian religion Easter is actually the greater holiday.

 

 

[luuknam]

I usually set aside one egg of each color in case someone can't find all of theirs--I can hide the extra and let them find it.

 

 

Oh, it wasn't a problem, we had 43 total (originally was a bag of 50, but over the years some have broken), so after one went missing we had 42, which unlike 43, is divisible by 2, so it was a good thing in a way... except that now there's a plastic egg with chocolate in it somewhere in the yard. Oh well. It'll probably be found eventually.

[myfunnybunch]

Surely no-one hunts for hard boiled eggs ?!

We do!

 

We dyed and hid 4 dozen. The egg hiding and hunt goes pretty quickly, so unless the weather is really warm we eat them too. We'll take deviled eggs to MIL's this afternoon and eat egg salad sandwiches and tomato soup for dinner tonight. :)

Edited April 16, 2017 by myfunnybunch

[myfunnybunch]

That's a great idea. I should really rethink my assumption that it's all about the candy - even as I've moved to make the baskets much more modest, it's just not healthy.

 

My kids get water balloons, bubbles, silly string. Sometimes things like quarters for the arcade or Nerf darts. A little candy, too, but they like their traditional silly string fight each year, and have a massive water balloon fight after the weather warms up.

[MistyMountain]

We are secular and do Easter very minimally. It is one of my least favorite holidays. I guess I will be one of the few that hides real colored eggs. I do not like having cheap plastic eggs to store during most of the year they are not being used or to have lots of extra candy around. My kids are very sensitive to the dyes and other artificial stuff in candy. I know exactly how many are hidden and where and I never had one not found. We go to a UU church and they do another hunt there for plastic eggs and I have them trade candy for a big chocolate that does not have artificial stuff in it. I do not really get Easter presents either. I keep Christmas as the one materialistic holiday.

Edited April 16, 2017 by MistyMountain

[Audrey]

Real eggs, but not anymore. He outgrew that ages ago. We're not religious, but love the pagan origins of all the christian holidays, plus candy.  The more candy it requires, the better the holiday, IMO.

 

Also, bunnies! 

[bookbard]

I just googled 'cascarones' - a Mexican tradition of hollowed out eggs. I wonder whether that tradition is why so many of you in America have the empty plastic eggs, sounds a similar thing? And why we don't have that tradition over here in Australia (we tend to follow British traditions). 

[Violet Crown]

I just googled 'cascarones' - a Mexican tradition of hollowed out eggs. I wonder whether that tradition is why so many of you in America have the empty plastic eggs, sounds a similar thing? And why we don't have that tradition over here in Australia (we tend to follow British traditions).

One year there was a little discussion here about cascarones, and as I recall they were pretty much a Texas thing. My recollection is that it was a really old Italian carnival custom that worked its way through Spain, Mexico, and Texas, ending up in its current Easter form.

 

I know that when I went to the HEB a few days ago, there was a small section of Easter candies and half an aisle of huge crates of egg cartons with cascarones.

 

I don't think it's related to plastic eggs (an abomination) at all.

 

ETA: I will be vacuuming up confetti for a week.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Violet Crown

[Sherry in OH]

I just googled 'cascarones' - a Mexican tradition of hollowed out eggs. I wonder whether that tradition is why so many of you in America have the empty plastic eggs, sounds a similar thing? And why we don't have that tradition over here in Australia (we tend to follow British traditions). 

 

I think a combination of plastics manufacturers captializing on the popularity of L'egg eggs (L'egg brand pantyhose were sold in plastic egg shaped containers in the 1970s and 1980s), increased concern about food safety, and fear of law suits relating to food safety are more likely reasons.   

 

We also used to have large two piece hollow chocolate eggs.  The top half of the egg lifted off and other candies were inside.  I remember enjoying them as a child.  First we'd eat the treats from inside the egg, and then over the next few days nibble away at the egg itself.    

[IsabelC]

There are plastic eggs?! Seriously, I never heard of that before. 
We do colored hardboiled eggs. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Easter-Eggs-Plastic-Bright-Egg-Assortment-144-pc/293722358?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=278&adid=22222222228075010736&wmlspartner=wmtlabs&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=m&wl3=188396380069&wl4=pla-293712810473&wl5=9033255&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=111838730&wl11=online&wl12=293722358&wl13=&veh=sem

 

 

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