Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder when all this Easter Bunny nonsense started?

243 replies

Housewife2010 · 01/04/2018 08:30

As a child I was given eggs by my family which I started on Easter Sunday. We give our children two eggs each and have an egg hunt and a few other chocolate treats. On FB now I see that the Easter Bunny has visited friend's houses and left masses of chocolate and presents. Is this the norm now? I would never have thought of buying Easter gifts.

OP posts:
Littlelondoner · 01/04/2018 16:58

In the 80s early 90s our family never had easter bunny but we got eggs from family. Parents. Grandparents. Aunts uncles etc. And family friends.

But we always got an easter outfit and a teddy of a rabbit or chick or something.

This was the done thing amongst everyone I knew. So dont think a new thing at all.

squarecorners · 01/04/2018 17:03

I'm not against a little novelty (sheep /bunny /chick or something), especially if the plan is to keep chocolate to a minimum but it's the fully wrapped gifts I have a massive drama with. It's not Christmas 2 Ffs.

TalkinPeece · 01/04/2018 17:10

Yet another goad and run Daily Fail
sexist, racist, anti semitic tax dodging "paper"
trying to froth people up for a free story

The Eater Bunny is pre Christian

The Daily Fail are a bunch of shits

RoseWhiteTips · 01/04/2018 17:18

Rampant consumerism and consumption. Ignore.

Chrys2017 · 01/04/2018 17:23

In my family the best part was solving the riddle left by the Easter Bunny (a.k.a. our Dad) to find the treats. Said treats would be the hard-boiled eggs we'd coloured the previous evening, plus one large chocolate egg to be shared by us all after the evening meal.

"Easter Bunny", now in his late 80s, now emails the annual riddle to us all so we can solve it remotely.

LilQueenie · 01/04/2018 17:38

the Easter Bunny wouldn't bring her presents down the chimney.

Of course not. He lets himself in with magic fairy dust. Grin

As a child I got a few eggs and clothes from grandparents. Now my DD loves all the collectable toys lols and shopkin type that I buy them over time and stick them in a large egg for her to open. She also gets other small cheap gifts but its only from me as no one else really bothers.

Quietlife1979 · 01/04/2018 19:17

Ooh here’s where the Easter bunny comes in !

To wonder when all this Easter Bunny nonsense started?
LeighaJ · 01/04/2018 19:33

When I was a child we got an Easter Basket with a chocolate bunny, Cadbury eggs, a carrot shaped cellophane thing full of orange jelly beans, and some other bits and a bunny, chick, or lamb plushie.

We'd get that first thing in the morning and it was always from the Easter Bunny.

Sometimes we'd be taken to see the Easter Bunny and get a picture with them. I didn't realise the Easter Bunny was a new thing. Hmm

Tringley · 01/04/2018 19:41

I wonder where it will end and at what point parents started buying loads of Xmas/Easter whatever gifts to show their love instead of just being there.

We can do both you know. Why the assumption that parents who buy their children gifts at Easter do so in lieu of spending time with them?

expatinspain · 01/04/2018 19:48

I used to really overdo it with DD when we lived in the UK, but here in Spain Easter eggs aren't really a big thing. We had a small hunt on Friday and the kids ended up with five or six small things (kinder egg size) and today DD got just one big egg, which she ate. She hasn't missed the masses of eggs she had last year at all.

Singlikemiranda · 01/04/2018 19:59

One of my fb friends has posted a pic of her 5 year old daughter with a sofa full of wrapped gifts and eggs as well as £10 notes scattered amongst it all!

I honestly believe social media is to blame, without it people wouldn't know what other people's kids got and so there would be no need to show off Hmm

ikeepaforkinmypurse · 01/04/2018 21:12

true, but without social media, it would also be harder for people to find something to bitch about behind their friends'back.

Quietlife1979 · 01/04/2018 22:11

sing absolutely !

LaurieMarlow · 01/04/2018 22:23

true, but without social media, it would also be harder for people to find something to bitch about behind their friends' back

Grin
justgivemethepinot · 01/04/2018 22:26

I don't think the Easter Bunny thing is new as such. The whole cards/presents second Christmas thing definitely is though. Ive always loved Easter because - it's a great holiday that doesn't involve spending a fortune like Christmas does. A few Eggs, trip to the chippy on good Friday, roast lamb on Sunday. No pressure. It's a shame it's becoming commercialised too.

Tringley · 01/04/2018 22:52

The whole cards/presents second Christmas thing definitely is though.

It's not though. Gifts there is plenty of evidence of gifts being exchanged at Easter. In early Victorian times, for example, it was fashionable to exchange gifts inside egg shaped containers. Decades before chocolate eggs were invented. Easter cards (many with the bunny on them) have been popular since the late 19th century. On this very thread, a poster has shared images of her mother's vintage Easter cards and states she has some going back to the early 1900s.

These aren't new fads. They are traditions older than any of us here. Just because someone hasn't personally experienced something doesn't mean that it's only newly invented.

aprilanne · 01/04/2018 23:05

i always gave my children eggs and my parents and so forth gave them but it was nothing to do with a bunny it was to do with the crucifiction and the egg represented the stone being rolled from jesus tomb.i still give my grandchildren eggs for the same reason even although they are not church goers i always fling in a book and some craft sets as well .but then i always told them christmas is about baby jesus not really about a man in a red suit even although they always get good presents .

sheworebluevelet · 01/04/2018 23:41

I think the gifts and money are on the rise, cos the eggs are so rubbish.

Every shop sells the same ones. Every year they try to persuade us that a luxury egg is a bit of thin chocolate one with a few bits of fudge tacked to the side.
Eggs used to be properly thick with a bag of yummy stuff inside.
If you want an "inside" egg it's a couple bog standard branded ones or super high egg for £12.

JassyRadlett · 02/04/2018 10:12

it was nothing to do with a bunny it was to do with the crucifiction and the egg represented the stone being rolled from jesus tomb.

The Christian retconning of the festivals and traditions they appropriated is always entertaining.

I’m not saying this is your fault/issue aprilanne, but it does amuse me how much the Christian church bent over backwards (and sometimes continues to do so) to justify including in Christian festivals the bits of the pagan ones that everyone liked best.

TalkinPeece · 02/04/2018 10:53

Eggs as a new thing : look up Faberge Eggs

it was nothing to do with a bunny it was to do with the crucifiction and the egg represented the stone being rolled from jesus tomb.
That has made my day
Classic

aprilanne · 02/04/2018 10:57

yes i know that they probably just inshrined pagan festivals to fit an ideal but its just something i was brought up to believe .no one else in my house goes to church and i never forced my sons either .but they do love the presents though

aprilanne · 02/04/2018 10:59

talkinpeece thats what christians are taught at sunday school from a young age .no one ever rattled on about the easter bunny when i was young i am only 48

tapdancingmum · 02/04/2018 11:00

We used to buy DD1 a present as her birthday is at Christmas so she would get a bike or scooter but that only lasted until DD2 came along! After that I would take them egg rolling whilst DH hid their eggs in the garden for them to find when we came back. DD1 is at Uni now and was out of the country last year and hasn't been home this year so I've taken DD2 to roll eggs but haven't hidden hers to find. We don't have a large garden but DH always hid them very well!
In terms of how many they got it was always one from us and one from Nanna, when she was alive.
I do judge when kids get as much as they do at Easter but then give my head a wobble and think that it's horses for courses and if that's what you want to do then do it. I'd prefer them getting a present that will last rather than hordes of chocolate.

DarkRoomDarren · 02/04/2018 11:02

I remember the Easter bunny from when I was little (80s and 90s). We did an Easter egg hunt here yesterday. It’s the first time we’ve done one, as dc1 is only 3, but I honestly couldn’t bring myself to spout such bollocks about a bunny coming and leaving them in the house, so I just said “it must be magic”.

Questionsmorequestions · 02/04/2018 11:05

Easter tree here is the bottom branches of the Christmas tree saved to decorate with eggs. Egg decorations have been made over the years, mainly blown eggs but now some of the fake ones as I ńo longer have the patience!