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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:
ElizaDontlittle · 02/04/2018 11:07

We didn't get chocolate as children, we got a summer 'outfit' - probably we would have needed summer clothes anyway - and a book or some pens/crayons from our grandparents. But a very secular upbringing, so I'm not sure why we marked it at all. We would sometimes make shredded wheat nests with mini eggs. Mid 30s, then I'd never heard of the Bunny or people having egg hunts at home though sometimes I'd see organised ones advertised.

HazelBite · 02/04/2018 11:13

Last year Easter Sunday fell on my Nephews 6th birthday so to try and make his birthday as nice as possible did all the usual cake, ballons etc and decided to hide eggs all around the garden for him to find. We have a largish garden that backs onto woodland so we hae visits from all the local wildlife (deer, foxes, squirels, pheasants etc)
To make the hunt easier I put all the foil covered eggs (12 in total) in the various plant tubs around the garden.
A short while later DH said he had seen a fox digging around in my tub of pansies.
I went outside and every egg had gone!
I hope the foil gave him bellyache!

TalkinPeece · 02/04/2018 11:18

aprilanne
thats what christians are taught at sunday school from a young age
I sincerely hope not
I went to church every Sunday till I was ten and went to CofE schools
and I'm older than you

The Easter Bunny is part of the fertility rites
as are the eggs - and decorating blown eggs goes back centuries

SashaTaught · 02/04/2018 11:19

A lot of this perhaps depends on upbringing, if you aren’t raised in a Christian family, there is a lot more room for creating an alternative story behind Easter.

I was raised Jewish and we celebrated Easter at my school but with no reference to Jesus, we celebrated Easter at home also with no reference to Jesus. I didn’t learn th association until I went to university.

I thought the church was fading away nowadays and so surely The Christian element of Easter would do the same?

It’s a national bank holiday and surely we can all participate on whatever level we choose.

stargirl1701 · 02/04/2018 11:22

As a child I got an egg from parents, grandparents and aunts & uncles. This was a lot though because I had 17 aunts & uncles. We normally had 20 eggs every year.

My DC have multiple food allergies and get one Moo Free egg from us and money from grandparents. I also give them a book. I mark every possible occasion with a book! They get very little compared to me in the 1980s.

TalkinPeece · 02/04/2018 11:23

Sasha
Christians are often not reminded that the Last Supper was a Passover supper
because Jesus was, of course, Jewish
and the date of Easter is tied to that of Passover
but both are based on the spring Equinox - which is the ancient pagan fertility festival of Oestra (with the eggs and bunnies)

ziggiestardust · 02/04/2018 11:27

I’m 30 now, and from when I was about 7 my mum would buy me blocks of chocolate (I didn’t like Easter egg chocolate as a child; my how things change! Wink ) and she would also buy me books because I absolutely loved to read.

My DC isn’t as avid a reader, so we tend to buy him a medium egg and a smallish toy (about £20-£30 worth) and then we do an egg hunt for him in the garden. In previous years we’ve bought garden equipment and dressed it up as an easter present, because he’s a winter baby so bikes/slides/scooters don’t really get their use in winter. Horses for courses I guess. I think it’s fun to make something out of Easter; it’s like celebrating the end of winter. I fill my house with big bunches of daffodils, family and friends and we spend the long weekend playing, laughing, watching movies, eating chocolate and just having a good time. I wouldn’t say we spend a massive amount extra.

falang · 02/04/2018 11:30

As a child we got one chocolate egg. Nothing from relatives. My mum exchanged Easter cards with family. That was it.

SashaTaught · 02/04/2018 11:31

Exactly Talkin, there is a link —between all the nonsense— but some Christians still maintain it’s all about the resurrection and nothing else can be celebrated at that time. As Passover/Pesach often falls at the same time, I was once asked by an ultra Christian neighbour why the Jews were trying to hijack Easter?!

It’s a celebration for everyone, I don’t do it as Christian Easter or Passover (mainly because if I ever had to sit through another Seder it would be too soon). It’s a sham and if peo0le feel pressured to perform but isn’t it nice for lots of peo0le to have time off and use it as an excuse to see family.

MargeryFenworthy · 02/04/2018 11:34

It is actually perfectly possible to do both an Easter egg hunt and celebrate the Christian joy of Easter. We went to church and had a fun egg hunt at home with the DC. As a Catholic, this time of year is really important to me and I thoroughly enjoy breaking my Lenten fast to have a treat.

DrinkReprehensibly · 02/04/2018 11:39

I'm 37 and the Easter bunny would always hide small chocolate eggs (usually Creme Eggs) around the lounge. I remember it was more of a joke though because I was always aware that the "Easter Bunny" was my parents and they never hid that fact, even when little, because, it's a rabbit... Rabbits can't hide eggs - it was just for fun. I think they have me one big Easter Egg as well and that was it. I used to get one from all relatives though too and ended up with 13 one year! I remember being really upset when I came home from school and found my dad had been eating them. He was probably doing me a favour though! Haha.

We didn't get any other kind of present though. I can't have DC but if I did have some, I'd do something similar to what my parents did when I was little. I get my friend's kids and my niece a small egg from me and DH to add to their collections.

aprilanne · 03/04/2018 08:41

talkin peece well thats certainly what the baptist church in scotland teaches .but then every branch of christianity teaches different .and yes the same church still teaches the same thing to this day .think its obviously to just tie in some how with scoffing loads of chocolate at the end of lent .

toastedbeagle · 03/04/2018 08:46

I remember making shredded wheat chocolate nests at school in about 1987 and on the last day of chocolate the Easter Bunny had been and left us mini eggs in the nests. So not actually a new thing!

Bananamanfan · 03/04/2018 08:47

Glad it's not just me that HATES the Easter bunny. DD kept asking when he was coming. He didn't come. I even hate the word "bunny". My DCs got plenty of chocolate, some lego sets and a bit of spending money from us and family and we did an egg hunt. Why do I need to get a creepy rabbit involved?

MajesticWhine · 03/04/2018 08:56

We don’t do the Easter bunny. DD caught wind of it from her friends or TV and asked me if the Easter bunny was real and I said no. I’m not willing to peddle this story because it wasn’t a thing for me as a child.

Fijisky · 03/04/2018 09:06

I agree.

Easter eggs any maybe a cheap colouring book/ pens.

But the posts on my Facebook from a few, it literally looked like an egg themed Xmas in there house. Ridiculous!

Pinkvoid · 03/04/2018 09:55

This year my DC got six eggs each which equates to 18 eggs. I only bought them one, the rest were from relatives. I also bought little Lindt bunnies to hide around the house for the ‘egg hunt’. It was quite preposterous. We’re melting a couple down today to make nest buns Grin. I told them I only used to get one or two eggs as a child for Easter and they were shocked!

As for the Easter bunny, I don’t really mind playing along. Definitely don’t make as big a deal of it as Christmas though.

Babdoc · 03/04/2018 10:08

Talkinpeece, of course Christians are aware that the last supper was a Passover meal! What do you think we are celebrating at our Maundy Thursday evening communion service in Holy Week?! And the readings for Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus entering Jerusalem for Passover?
And the readings of Jesus preaching in the synagogue or attending the Temple - we all know he was a practising Jew, and celebrated all the festivals.

Halebeke425 · 03/04/2018 10:14

We're not Christian but see easter as a celebration of spring. The Easter bunny hides the eggs for the hunt in our house/garden, as he did when I was a child. Didn't realise this was a new thing. My dd did ask if we could have an Easter tree, I said no, don't see the point personally. If you start doing trees and gifts at Easter it's not as special and exciting for Christmas in my opinion. Also am not made of money and have other things to do with my time then planning and organising all this stuff!

JassyRadlett · 03/04/2018 10:15

Babdoc, some really downplay that though. I went to a religious school, church on Sundays, Sunday school, the lot.

Hand on heart if you’d asked me what religion the Pharisees were I wouldn’t have been able to tell you the answer until I started to question Christianity and faith as a whole in adulthood.

The idea that these rituals and festivals were fundamental to Judaism and that they are still observed today, rather that being an ancient rite superseded by Christianity in much the same way as Norse gods, was glossed over.

I hope that’s changed, but it aligns with Talk’s description. In my religious upbringing, the Jewish foundation was very heavily downplayed.

AsAProfessionalFekko · 03/04/2018 10:49

I used to work for the cofe and they used to host a community passover meal on the Thursday before good Friday.

Turquoise123 · 04/04/2018 17:23

The Easter Bunny was alive and well in the ' 60s as I recall...

MorriBuntz25 · 04/04/2018 17:40

Me to. I'm 38. Easter Bunny isn't something new at all..we always had the bunny leave some eggs in the garden to find along with a few from family and friends to. Nice old tradition x

Abra1de · 04/04/2018 17:41

IT used to be the Easter Hare in England, not Bunny.

stereolovely · 04/04/2018 18:06

When I was little, my parents would buy one or two eggs and I always got the most recent Disney film on video. Our neighbours would give us a "wee mindin" - a small, non-chocolate gift too. I remember a mini-greenhouse to grow herbs one year and an egg shaped soap with a duckling toy inside.
The current trend towards another Christmas is nuts though. I know families where newborns are given a dozen eggs and a pile of clothes. Mental!