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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to want the Easter Bunny to F*#k off?

114 replies

Limurz · 27/03/2016 11:12

When did the EB become a "thing' like a big eared santa sneaking in to leave Easter Eggs? My friends 7yr old was distraught at the supermarket yesterday when he saw someone buying an Eastet Egg and deduced that the EB may not exist. FFS. This just feels like a cynical ploy to turn Easter into Christmas and have us all running around like loons buying presents and too much food. I am officially an Easter grinch!

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augustusglupe · 27/03/2016 22:04

My DD is grown up now, when she was little I always bought her one small present at Easter as she didn't really like chocolate...(still doesn't....we're not similar Easter Hmm) and as Santa always came good big time!! we kept Easter small.
But on Thursday in Waitrose, about 3pm, I popped in for quite a big shop on my way home, thought I'd be out by 4....anyway, I was in there an hour and forty minutes!! Rang DH on the way home and said 'When did Easter become Christmas!?... Pushing, shoving, empty shelves!! Also saw Chick fairy lights in M&S and Easter wreaths in John Lewis.... I love Christmas and go all out tbh but I'm not getting caught up in Easter madness too!!

Pasithea · 27/03/2016 23:49

No Santa. No Easter bunny here. And nooooooo stress

Stickymum · 28/03/2016 13:18

Easter bunny delivers some small hollow Easter eggs (ten in total), then two big ones come from us. Daughter is adopted with social and educational delays so although she's eight nearly nine yo, she's developmentally about six so EB is still part of our lives.

I agree the shops seem to be turning all the celebration days into big events so I try to ignore it.

mumeeee · 28/03/2016 13:24

The Easter Bunny has been around for at least 20 years. My brother used to do it with his children. We didn't do it with ours they got Easter eggs but they knew they didn't come from the Easter Bunny.

oobedobe · 28/03/2016 14:17

I definitely relate with the OP, we live in North America so there is no avoiding the Easter Bunny here. My 7 yo was SO so excited about the Easter bunny coming me and DH are a bit Confused, it surprises me that she is such a believer, we keep Easter fairly simple IMO.

They get a small bit of choc in the morning which is from relatives. Then mid morning we hide eggs (the plastic ones with a small foil egg in) and the kids run around the garden collecting them, the Easter bunny leaves them one big egg each too. It is lots of fun for them, but I am slightly worried about the unwavering belief at 7 yo, and find it harder to go along with than Santa.

Growing up eggs were just from family and we had a nice family dinner and went to church, it was fun and a fairly major day but not such an event as it is now.

stealthsquiggle · 28/03/2016 14:47

Easter Bunny (well, Beagle, because DM is awkward, and a Snoopy fan) was part of my childhood and is for my DC. I love Easter - it's like all the fun unpressured bits of Christmas (like family and stockings) without the huge heap of presents. My DC get a small present from us (generally an egg collecting bag that I have made with maybe a small cuddly toy), follow a trail of small eggs laid by the Bunny/Beagle to a medium sized egg, and later in the day when GPs come round they hunt for plastic eggs filled with chocolate/haribo/stickers/whatever in the garden before a big roast dinner. This year we added friends and their two small DC to the equation, which was lovely.

As with stockings (lots of small things - no big presents) which FC takes credit for, Easter trails are fun stuff which they don't need to say thank you for. DC1 is 13 and has no intention of growing out of this tradition any more than I plan to let it go Easter Grin

stealthsquiggle · 28/03/2016 14:50

Meant to say - as with FC, EB does not presume to take credit for anything anyone else has bought - (small) presents or eggs (my DM sometimes chooses to get them a t shirt or cuddly toy instead of more chocolate) from relatives are credited to the people who bought them, who are duly thanked.

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 28/03/2016 17:33

The Easter Bunny isn't new in itself - it arguably pre-dates Christianity, and the edible Easter bunnies (originally pastry) have been a thing in Germany for at least a couple of hundred years...

It has become more prevalent in the UK in the last 20 years or so I guess though - when I was a kid in the 80s it was all eggs as far as I remember - no chocolate rabbits or references to the eater bunny, nor egg hunts. My MIL does an egg hunt for the grandkids every easter and they really look forward to it - the hunting itself far more than the chocolate in at least DC2's case.

SukeyTakeItOffAgain · 28/03/2016 17:53

When we were young, the Easter Bunny was referred to with even more knowing nods and winks than Father Christmas. And we always knew FC wasn't real.

Today's society is just bonkers.

Topseyt · 28/03/2016 18:10

Never bothered with Easter Bunny crap at all. The DDs have always got chocolate Easter eggs from us and my parents like to send them £5 each to do as they wish with.

That is it as far as we are concerned.

Some might call me a humbug. They might be right but it doesn't bother me and my three DDs seem to have survived unscathed.

getanotherloan · 28/03/2016 18:23

I never had the Easter Bunny thing as a child but have done it for my children. I just assumed it was for people who weren't particularly religious and didn't have all the churchy stuff to contend with over the Easter period? I was in my early 20s when I first encountered 'egg rolling' and thought that was very bizarre but again concluded that this was what non-Catholics got up to!

MrsJorahMormont · 28/03/2016 18:36

Evil Easter Bunny, as shared by Stephen King :o

AIBU to want the Easter Bunny to F*#k off?
LikeASoulWithoutAMind · 28/03/2016 22:05

We had the Easter Bunny as children more than 40 years ago so I'd agree this is not a new thing. He brought chocolate eggs often still with the Makro stickers on which we weren't allowed to eat before Mass (communion required an empty stomach) We'd had several days of full on Easter Masses by that point, featuring an awful lot of incense and kissing of statue's feet, so the two were by no means mutually exclusive.

No egg hunts back then though - but an egg hunt is so much fun, why not?

I think shops are trying to push so much more spending around all celebrations now though - Easter and Halloween being the two that immediately spring to mind. Do I really need decorations for either?

Duckfacepalm · 29/03/2016 00:14

We have 'bunny baskets' but haven't really done the easter bunny thing.

OptimisticSix · 29/03/2016 00:29

YANBU I don't get the Easter bunny thing, maybe because the first time I ever heard of it was late teens watching a film :) Do not do EB with my childreneither but judging by the Facebook photos I might be among the few; apparently the Easter bunny brings masses of eggs; videos; toys and even money. No. I love Christmas but am not at all on board with the Easter Bunny. Is there an Easter Grinch? If so I want to join him!

DisappointedOne · 29/03/2016 00:41

We've told 2yr DD that Father Christmas and Easter Bunny have each other's mobile number and can report to the other whether she's been good or bad. And they know the Tooth Fairy too.

That's truly horrible. What do you think is going to happen when she discovers the truth?

DisappointedOne · 29/03/2016 00:42

We don't do Xmas/Santa or Easter bunnies.

And no, we're not JWs. Hmm

PerspicaciaTick · 29/03/2016 03:15

I'm working on introducing the Soul Cake Duck to me DCs. They have happily taken on the idea that the Tooth Fairy is a franchisee and they definitely believe in the Eater of Socks.

ameliaesmith · 29/03/2016 11:20

We make a big effort to teach our kids about the true meaning of Easter, the death and resurrection of Jesus!

Schwabischeweihnachtskanne · 29/03/2016 11:31

ameliaesmith that's the "true meaning" of easter for you, and of course what you do and believe is as valid as what anyone else does and believes - it is not the definitive True Meaning though, given easter was originally a pagan festival celebrating the beginning of spring and the goddess Ēostre... Everyone has the right to celebrate and believe what they like, but your truth is not everyone's.

There is nothing Untrue or less legitimate about celebrating the end of winter/ start of spring with an egg hunt in the garden and chocolate rabbits than celebrating the Christian resurrection story by attending church on that day - for non Christians there is plenty of reason to celebrate the start of longer days, blooming flowers, more time outdoors, and arguably more reason, right before our eyes, to believe we are celebrating something true.

SukeyTakeItOffAgain · 29/03/2016 11:52

The true meaning of Eostre is a fertility and new life festival to do with the arrival of spring surely? Christians hijacked it like they did other festivals.

stealthsquiggle · 29/03/2016 11:54

I really don't get why there has to be some big moment of disillusionment when DC realise that these things are myths. I never ever had that conversation with my parents, and haven't had to have it with my DC. It's more of a gradual thing where it evolves from being something that they believe absolutely, to a nice tradition that we collectively choose to buy into. As for the FC - EB connection, we have had long and increasingly tongue in cheek family debates about how they, and the tooth fairy, have moved to a shared database to save costs.

They are traditional myths. Our DC would view them on a par with Norse gods, Greek gods, Dragons, and the Christian God.

MrsMook · 29/03/2016 12:30

I did the Easter Egg hunt in the garden which the Easter Bunny had hidden. That was 30+ years ago. I'm now doing the same for my children.

Funnily DS is terrified of people in costume, but he loved seeing an Easter Bunny at a children's farm last year (he was 4). He's also hugged a bear at a soft play party, and said it was OK because it was a real bear. Imagination and belief are powerful!

Our church does an egg hunt after the service Smile

noramum · 29/03/2016 13:12

We always do a hunt for eggs. This year indoors and DH hid them so good it took DD two days and some hints to find all of them.

She got home from school all days last week with one egg or another and we did bunnies ourselves. She obviously knows that people buy eggs and bunnies but for her the Easter Bunny comes and brings her some plus a small gift.

I hate the large eggs or a hunt just with clues, the joy for me is to find lots of chocolate in the garden.