The Easter Bunny is bringing all four of my grandchildren here for Easter this year and I am hippity-hopping for joy.
They’ll bring their own Easter baskets, but it’s up to me to fill them. Yes, I know the Easter Bunny will slip in with his goodies while they’re asleep on Easter Eve, but I am in charge of the Gigantic, Colossal Grandma Murphy Easter Egg Extravaganza.
We start the day off with a preliminary Easter Egg Hunt in the neighborhood. It’s fun and raucous and they serve little donuts, which are always a big hit. The planners wisely divide the hunt areas by age groups and each one is strewn with so many eggs that it’s difficult not to crush them underfoot. Plenty for everyone. Still, when the whistle blows and the rope is dropped, it becomes survival of the fittest. With the little ones, it’s survival of the fittest parents, but the result is always the same. The only eggs you take home are ones that your neighbor does not. Also, within each age group lies one golden egg that garners the finder a glitzy treat-filled Easter basket. The lucky child is thrilled and the rest of the little ones cry, and you know me, I can’t have that. Not at Grandma’s house. So, I initiated my own egg hunt for those of us in the losers’ bracket.
I admit it, I go a little overboard in my tier-two compensation. (Raise your hand if you’re surprised.) Last year, I hid 75 eggs and that was only for two grandchildren. This year, I’ll have to double that. And my eggs are actually hidden, albeit at a low level of difficulty. The kids will find eggs stuck between the deck spindles, balanced in the low branches of trees, and tucked among the new backyard ferns. I’ve learned not to be too crafty because one egg wasn’t found until September and that was by some poor squirrel who apparently ruined his teeth trying to get to the Kit Kat.
They’re plastic eggs, of course. For tradition’s sake, we dye a dozen of the hard-boiled variety, but we do it a few days ahead of time so no one ends up at church Easter Sunday with purple dye up to their elbows. We could hide the real eggs, but when you drop them, they break and everybody cries, and again, we can’t have that at Grandma’s.
Besides, you can fill the plastic eggs with little treats. Two of my grandchildren have peanut allergies, so I stick with basic chocolate eggs and bunnies, each one wrapped in pretty foil. Just to spice things up, some eggs are filled with little plastic toys, lizards and bugs, things like that. This year, I’m including whistles, which I may come to regret, but it’s an outside event so I decided to take my chances.
Once the eggs are all retrieved, each participant gets a spectacular prize, something bigger than a plastic bug but small enough to go home in their suitcase. It’s a win/win/win/win situation and I love it.
This Grandma stuff is so much more fun than when my girls were little. Back then, the Easter Bunny tried to sneak in granola bars and packs of raisins along with the candy, but at Grandma’s house, the Easter Bunny knows better. He just has to get past the newest nutrition border patrol (my daughters) but that will be a piece of cake … hey, maybe this year we’ll end with a bunny cake. My grandkids will be hippity-hopping for joy.
