Easter 2012

I am an Easter Scrooge.  Even though I have fond memories from my childhood of hunting for eggs, dyeing eggs, and waking up and searching for my Easter basket I just never found the joy in Easter as a parent. I gave up egg dyeing several years ago and for whatever reason the whole easter bunny thing just seems more like a chore. Being as uninvolved with religion as we are, there is no "real" reason to celebrate the holiday- it is strictly parental guilt that leads me to the pastel colored grocery aisles- thinking about my children lying on therapy couches years from now lamenting how the Easter Bunny visited all of their friends growing up but he shunned them. I'm sure they'd be warped forever. 

So I bought candy and filled eggs and my mom and I hid them Saturday night while Brian (even more of an Easter Scrooge than myself) heckled us from the couch.  The kids did enjoy searching for the eggs the next morning but they were especially excited about the eggs that held clues in them. We started the "clues in the eggs" idea when Jake was very young. This year just five of the eggs held clues- a scrambled sentence that led them to our new house. We had been intending to get them a trampoline for the new yard so we used that as our Easter present. Throwing robes on over our jammies we headed to the new house where the trampoline was discovered in the garage (still in boxes since we didn't officially own the property yet).  The kids' enthusiasm was lackluster- especially Faith who was very subdued and later told me that she had really been hoping for a "guy" (another stuffed animal). Needless to say, my attitude about easter and the easter bunny was not markedly improved by their reaction. To be fair, two big boxes with a picture of other kids jumping happily is not quite the same as being able to run out and jump on your very own trampoline. The delayed gratification is a little hard for  a 5,6, and 9 year old. I know once it is set up they will be appropriately excited. 

The big hit of the day was Grandma Mary's gift that she left for them- they each got a chair for their new rooms and a Hex Bug. The Hex Bugs got a full days worth of play as the kids built lego houses for their bugs, homes out of cardboard, obstacle courses, etc... Now they are gathering dust on one of the many packing boxes lining the halls of our soon-to-be-vacated house.