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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:
Willow2016 · 13/02/2017 20:38

Never did the easter bunny as a child and havent done it with mine.

We get eggs and will do a hunt the mini egg thing with the kids but thats it. No bunny to get the credit!

Never understood the whole bunny thing, just why would a bunny deliver eggs?

Skylucy its an american import that came over her (from a German tradition probably but that involved a hare not a rabbit)

Rabbits, hares and eggs have always been pagan symbols of fertility and rebirth and christians capitalised on this with claiming the egg as 'the rock' closing jesus's tomb i.e rolling eggs was to roll away the rock.

We used to all go rolling our 'pace' (decorated) eggs at easter down the nearest hill Smile but the 'empty egg' doesnt fit when its hard boiled Smile

Creatureofthenight · 13/02/2017 20:45

As the pagan festival with eggs and rabbits as symbols of fertility predates the Christian festival, I would say that this is in fact the 'real' meaning of Easter.
Giant Easter bunnies are just creepy though.

PerspicaciaTick · 13/02/2017 20:50

You really need to read the Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. Apparently tooth collection is run as a franchise operation, fairies are provided with the ladder, the moneybelt and the pliers.

Chickennuggetfeeder · 13/02/2017 20:51

As i said i never did easter as a child but i did have a friend who did a hunt every year she was the only one i knew.

user1478860582 · 13/02/2017 20:52

WHAT? The Easter Bunny, Santa and the Tooth Fairy.....aren't real? Are you lot sure?

Next you'll tell me that Boris Johnson lied about £350m to the NHS......

skerrywind · 13/02/2017 21:12

the real meaning of Easter,

ha ha.

VestalVirgin · 13/02/2017 21:42

Huh. Weird. The Easter Hare is indeed an ancient German tradition, I am now rather surprised that it is not known in England and/or that you imported it from the US when Germany is much closer. Why?

You managed to import the Christmas tree properly, so why not the Easter Hare?

(Sadly, I have to say, people aren't aware it is a hare, not a rabbit, in Germany, either. Most people don't know the difference between hares and rabbits.)

Original poster
Iwasjustabouttosaythat · 13/02/2017 22:33

Driving, I think you need to do a quick Google about where most of your Christian symbolism came from. Stolen from much older pagan traditions in order to convert people. See also Christmas. Or maybe it was just to take all the fun away?

OP posts:
Original poster
Iwasjustabouttosaythat · 13/02/2017 22:36

Also the rabbit (or hare) doesn't lay eggs. He just brings them.

OP posts:
LemonThyme82 · 13/02/2017 22:40

Big bunnies are creepy!

www.boredpanda.com/creepy-easter-bunny-kids/

MyOtherNameIsTaken · 13/02/2017 22:41

Easter Bunny brings the eggs from everyone. No egg hunts, that's definitely not traditional (for me, it may be for others)

Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday breakfast, Eggs on the breakfast table on Easter Sunday and that's it. Apart from the trip to Tesco for reduced eggs after Easter Grin

Summerisdone · 13/02/2017 22:41

I never ever did Easter Bunny as a child nor have I ever known anybody personally who did it as a real thing either. To me and all my friends it was just something we randomly associated with Easter due to it being a 'spring thing' though never actually understood why bunnys with eggs??
It's not something I will encourage with DS either tbh as he starts to understand more which I'm guessing will be next year.
I will of course do Father Christmas, he already knows who it is just doesn't quite get what he's all about yet. I will also do the tooth fairly, but the minute he stops believing in the fairy the money under a pillow stops.

TellMeItsNotTrue · 13/02/2017 22:55

Don't worry about the confusion of rabbits laying eggs, there is a simple explanation Wink

To feel weird about the Easter bunny?
TooSmittle · 13/02/2017 22:56

My rather eccentric mum spent a good few years getting up at stupid o'clock on easter morning and creating 'Easter Trees' by tying chocolate eggs and bows and other Easter stuff for her friend's children. She got up to about 7 different houses before she moved away and stopped. None of them knew it was her. I'd moved out by then so never saw her leave or arrive home, but I liked to imagine her wearing in a massive pink bunny outfit to do it.

When she moved away I wanted her to do that thing the mad woman in the Vicar Of Dibley did and secretly tell as many people as possible that it was her and that she had chosen them to continue the tradition... cue umpteen fully grown adults in bunny costumes wandering round the estate on Easter morning! Sadly I don't think she did.

I was never brought up thinking the easter bunny brought chocolate mind you, she was well into her 60s when she took up this little hobby!

Original poster
Iwasjustabouttosaythat · 13/02/2017 23:03

Summer, I hope he isn't as sneaky as my DP. He figured Santa out pretty early on but never told his parents so he could keep getting the extra present. Then DSis blew the whole thing...

OP posts:
Magicpaintbrush · 13/02/2017 23:03

We do all the easter bunny/ santa / tooth fairy (and she was recently given a fairy door as a gift so now we have a fairy in the garden too) - but my DD is very over sensitive and emotional and I am now dreading the day she realises they aren't real and that it was all me. A lot of kids would take it in their stride and not be too bothered, but my DD isn't one of those. I have a horrible feeling she is going to take it really badly and be totally crushed. She believes so fervently in these magical beings and the older she gets the more I can see where this is going - what started as a magical charming tradition when she was little will end with her feeling totally betrayed. She's just that sort of child. I am not going to come out if this looking good basically. I'm not convinced me explaining that it is a tradition is going to make much difference to her, she will just feel lied to. Sad

SpringerS · 13/02/2017 23:06

I'm 38 and my parents never did the Easter Bunny with me though I'd certainly heard of him and really, really did wish he was as real as Santa. Because if he was, Easter would have been much more exciting. So I've gone with the Easter Bunny with DS. He has a very fantastical imagination along with a very willing suspension of disbelief so I can see him believing in all the mythological creatures for years to come. (He's only 4 now though, so who knows for sure.)

But it's great fun doing the Easter Bunny, when I grew up my parents and grandparents used to give us toys for Easter because we used to get so many eggs from our vast extended family. So I've copied an American friend who does an Easter Basket containing a few toys and little plastic eggs filled with fruits, little chocolates and small toys that I pick up (mostly in charity shops) throughout the year. The little eggs are a huge hit because DS is one of the millions of children who for some bizarre reason derives insane amounts of pleasure watching people open eggs on youtube. Getting to do it himself once a year is an absolute highlight of his life.

Kleinzeit · 13/02/2017 23:09

We had the Easter Bunny who leaves Easter eggs. DS heard me talking to the Easter Bunny on the phone one Easter Sunday morning when the delivery hadn't arrived (yes I had forgotten to put the eggs out while DS was asleep). But in later years DS decided that the Easter Bunny was a fraud who enslaved Easter Chicks and made them dole out chocolate eggs while the Easter Bunny took all the credit.

SpringerS · 13/02/2017 23:11

I forgot to add that it starts with an egg hunt. The easter bunny eats the bowl of dandelion leaves we put out for him the night before and leaves an arrow in it's place that sets DS in the direction of 12 numbered, hidden eggs. Then by the 12th egg is another arrow that leads to the basket. It's great fun and once he's done opening all his eggs, we have a special breakfast. Then he plays for a while and we go on an Easter outing, then for a restaurant dinner on the way home.

sirfredfredgeorge · 13/02/2017 23:11

He figured Santa out pretty early on but never told his parents so he could keep getting the extra present.

Then he didn't figure out santa at all...

ShoutOutToMyEx · 13/02/2017 23:15

My brother once told me that Easter eggs are laid by Jesus. God knows where he got that from. Quite an image.

Fink · 13/02/2017 23:20

In France the eggs are delivered by bells. Even weirder. The bells leave on Maundy Thursday (which is when bells are silenced in the Church for the Triduum), fly to Rome to be blessed by the Pope, and come back with chocolate eggs.

We don't do any of them (Father Christmas, tooth fairy, Easter egg deliverers who are not human etc.), we still have egg hunts (and Christmas presents and money for teeth).

ZuzuMyLittleGingersnap · 13/02/2017 23:47

Magicpaintbrush,

This method might soften the blow?

ZuzuMyLittleGingersnap · 14/02/2017 00:05

Lemon,

Well, that's killed any chance of peaceful dreams for me tonight Shock

Grin
NeedsAsockamnesty · 14/02/2017 02:01

Easter bunny is a very recent import

It's potentially possible that this is made up because my aunty was a raging drunk but she used to tell me that the Easter bunny predates Christianity.

Only it wasn't a bunny it was a hare, something to do with it being the companion of some moon or fertility Easter time goddess.

I don't much care if she did make it up it was a nice story and I think of her and it everytime I catch a wiff of gin.