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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To feel weird about the Easter bunny?

56 replies

Iwasjustabouttosaythat · 13/02/2017 05:07

Even though we do Santa Claus? I feel even weirder about the tooth fairy. What does she want with all those teeth?? These lies just feel like a bridge too far somehow.

Which ones do you do in your house? Do you go with huge and outrageous stories about the backgrounds of these characters? Do you forgo the fictional characters and just give them money/chocolate?

I am torn about what to do for Easter. There will definitely be an egg hunt but I'm not sure if it's me or the bunny who hid them...

OP posts:

winniewigs · 13/02/2017 05:16

Just say that the Easter bunny is a nice story for children. That's what I say about all these characters. I don't tell my dc that they're literally real, they're just nice stories for children.

BusterGonad · 13/02/2017 05:19

I'll keep it up for as long as my son believes, I'm in no rush for him to grow up.

Slarti · 13/02/2017 06:15

I didn't realise I was meant to be doing the Easter Bunny as an actual thing. Santa and the tooth fairy, yes.

FrancisCrawford · 13/02/2017 06:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FatCatFaces · 13/02/2017 06:25

I never had the Easter bunny as a child. I was aware that there was a vague connection between Easter and bunnies, but it wasn't an actual character.

Is it really a thing?

Kids just get given chocolate by people don't they? My nan might've hidden some chocolates in the garden once, but we knew it was her.

Coldilox · 13/02/2017 06:37

I'm 35 and my parents did the Easter Bunny thing, it's not that new

skerrywind · 13/02/2017 06:41

I don't do the Easter bunny, but I do Santa- but as a mythical pretend character- no less exciting and kids are happy to play along- it's the world they are used to. Also means no big reveal.
My 16 and 19 year old still hang up their stockings for Santa.

illegitimateMortificadospawn · 13/02/2017 06:43

I told DS1 the Easter bunny wasn't real (just a nice story) when he was about 4 yo. He was relieved and said it made sense because he couldn't work out how the bunny had wrapped all the eggs (in foil) with paws. Then he started in on the tooth fairy. At that point DH kicked me under the table 'cause he thought I might assassinate the man in red.

shouldwestayorshouldwego · 13/02/2017 06:49

EB was a step too far for our dc. FC lasted the longest (perhaps the most to lose - although it is only ever stockings). TF had her place and even a little door so she didn't need to delve under pillows. As my then 5yr old observed rabbits don't even lay eggs. They do love an easter egg hunt though.

LordPercy · 13/02/2017 06:50

I'd never heard of the Easter bunny as a child and never mention it to our dcs. Two are late teens now and it doesn't seem to have scarred them for life. Nor me actually.

shouldwestayorshouldwego · 13/02/2017 06:50

My children that is, not rabbits.

Crumbs1 · 13/02/2017 06:54

Father Christmas definitely. Tooth fairies who wrote in the tiniest of font and spoke a different type of language.
Easter bunny as a treasure hunt as we were always on holiday with another largish family at Easter. So around 7 am there was inevitably a shout of Easter Bunnies been and children would search in and around the two villas giviing adults extra hour in bed before getting up for church. Love the Easter bunny.

ThaliaLuxurySpa · 13/02/2017 07:22

"The idea of an egg-giving hare went to the U.S. in the 18th century. Protestant German immigrants in the Pennsylvania Dutch area told their children about the "Osterhase" (sometimes spelled "Oschter Haws"). Hase means "hare", not rabbit, and in Northwest European folklore the "Easter Bunny" indeed is a hare. According to the legend, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in the nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter". -Wikipedia

I'm in my 40s, and grew up with it here in the UK.

Harmless, fun and a treasure hunt getting kids to run off some steam outside, IMO.

(Although preventing greedy dogs from snaffling toxic-to-them hidden chocolate eggs became more of the tradition in our family!).

Chickennuggetfeeder · 13/02/2017 07:27

I have never done the easter bunny as a child or with mine. Thinking about it ive never done an easter egg hunt either. Im not sure why we didnt do it easter eggs just came from aunts and uncles while my parents and grandparebl didnt buy them as "they are a stupid waste of money". So ive never really understood the whole easter bunny thing.

WhoKn0wsWhereTheTimeG0es · 13/02/2017 07:32

I had never had the Easter Bunny as a child so haven't done it with mine. We buy each of us an egg plus I fill up plastic ones and hide them in the garden later in the day for hunting (and repeat all afternoon) but no Easter Bunny.

Tooth fairy was low key too, no name or letters or tales about her, just tooth under pillow to be replaced by a coin in the night.

MirandaWest · 13/02/2017 07:32

I'm 41 and we never did the Easter bunny. Did Father Christmas and the tooth fairy. Have never really got the thing about the Easter bunny and my dc don't seem to have had any ill effects from not having it.

ShelaghTurner · 13/02/2017 07:33

No bunny here either thank goodness. I'm still recovering from Christmas and the two birthdays that came straight after. DD1 has loudly debunked the tooth fairy myth so poor DD2 won't even get a shot at that! MIL chucks some eggs in her hedges for the children to find, otherwise Easter Sunday is mass and a chocolate free for all!

ThaliaLuxurySpa · 13/02/2017 07:54

^^Forgot to answer your actual question, OP:

Nobody need feel pressured into adding yet another tradition.

Our family's were/ are just cheap, foil-covered, mini-eggs and few tiny Easter-themed wooden ornaments hidden all over the garden 'from the Easter Bunny'. Every child given a basket and sent off in that state of excitement which only happens when you're tiny and easily impressed.

No back story created.

(Though one year an eccentric neighbour was intent on delivering them in full EB costume. Was politely out of sheer horror at the thought of 6ft2-sized rabbit lolloping out of the shrubbery declined, and traumatising of kids thus averted...).

Larger, boxed chocolate eggs always given from parents/ DGP/ friends.

You're certainly very organised, OP, to be mulling this over in Feb!

Tabymoomoo · 13/02/2017 08:04

We have a big family Easter egg hunt at my parents' where the eggs are supposedly left all over the garden by the Easter bunny. No one really dwells on the bunny part of the story they're all too interested in the choccy eggs! I'm also pretty the certain the kids know that it's actually their grandparents who hide the eggs. All harmless fun!

SkyLucy · 13/02/2017 08:04

This thread is such a shock! People didn't have the Easter Bunny growing up? And don't do it now? It's a 'new import'?! (From where?!) I'm in my thirties and we always had a visit from EB at Easter. They'd leave a big egg, then hide six little eggs each for me and my brother in the garden. We'd don PJs and wellies, grab baskets and go searching! We used to love it! Think my DM's probably planning a revival this year for my baby (who'll be two months old!)

SkyLucy · 13/02/2017 08:06

We used to watch this stop-motion animation every Easter Sunday too: "Follow That Bunny", which, looking at it now, it's slightly frightening...! m.youtube.com/watch?v=cgqDa7LkkT4

dementedpixie · 13/02/2017 08:09

We never had the Easter bunny growing up and it was the one we didn't do with our kids either. We did Santa and the tooth dairy though.

Original poster

Iwasjustabouttosaythat · 13/02/2017 19:19

Illegitimate, that story is so sweet. Now I have the image of a giant, fluffy, frustrated bunny crying, surrounded by broken foil and chocolate eggs everywhere.

Thalia, I wish I was organised. I'm just very excited! DS is forever stopping to look at all the shiny chocolate on offer in the shops. And hot cross buns are out too. No HCBs allowed until at least March in this house. It needs to be a little bit special.

When I was little the chocolate was always from people. The Easter bunny was mentioned at school more but I don't think he ever brought me any eggs. I never did any egg hunts either. Still, all that coloured foil was just magical! I just want to enhance it and make all these things as magical as possible for DS.

I still can't decide whether to go with it. It seems so sweet, a benevolent little bunny hopping about the garden with chocolate. Why not? But then the questions will start... did you know some reindeers are very good at sewing? No, neither did I.

OP posts:

DrivingMeBonkers · 13/02/2017 19:28

The Easter Bunny is a new innovation, it certainly isn't something my parents did with me, none of my school friends did it, we have not done it with our own children and neither have they done it with grand children. no one who has married into or is acquainted with does this peculiar practice. Egg hunts again are a new innovation.

Call me old fashioned but have you tried the real meaning of Easter, which is the principle celebration in the Christian calendar? Eggs are symbolic of rebirth; when the egg is opened it is empty, also symbolising the empty tomb.

Rabbits laying eggs

Tiggles · 13/02/2017 19:31

My kids have always known that I am both the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy but also know that they mustn't let on to other kids who are sure they are real. Santa however, they have no clue about yet

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