Wouldn'tcha know that sometime last week Mr. Morning himself approached me and asked me the age old (well not quite that old) question "Mom, is the Easter Bunny real?" ...Well paint me a polka-dot easter bunny and sit me in the plastic green grass. I honestly felt overjoyed at the opportunity to answer this one. "No, little mister," I said, "the Easter Bunny is NOT real." I've always played along, but never forced the issue. And the five kids that have gone before him have never managed to ask. In my most loving and motherly way, I proceeded to lay it out. I think it was a delightful revelation for him, and it allowed me to call it 'just for fun' and 'pretend' and move on with life. So don't get all crazy on me and ask questions about other holidays and American traditions, because I won't answer. At least not here. What I will tell you, is that the Easter Bunny and I have parted ways. I'm looking forward to spending the rest of Easter week allowing him to be excited about candy and eggs and all that, but also taking advantage of some quiet time to really teach him about Easter.
After Thursday, I'll add a link to Elder Jeffrey Holland's amazing conference talk on this subject.
7 comments:
I guess the excitement about the Easter Bunny not being real has come to a close, and at a very young age. Usually it is around 6 or 7 for some children. But to teach him what Easter is all about and the lessons taught from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday will be wonderful experience. Good for you, Jen. He is a very inquisitive child, but then with 5 older siblings, I can understand why.
This hasn't come up here either, but there's really no surprises that surprisingly appear! We partake in community easter egg hunts, but Easter is for Easter.
My mom started a good tradition last year with the grandkids that is fun but not bunny. On Saturday they have a family dinner and then she hides eggs all over the yard for the kids. There is no candy in the eggs, but instead, "Funny Bunny Money" in different increments. She then has a table set up with random dollar store items and they have to use their money to "pay" for them. There isn't enough money to get everything and so they really have to choose. She pretends to be a store clerk and acts silly. Sometimes a couple of more enterprising kids will pool money to get something larger. Anyway, the kiddies have been talking about it for the last six weeks and how fun it was and asked to do it again. No bunny, just a fun tradition. Easter Sunday is kept entirely seperate from Grandma's Annual Funny Bunny Money Egg Hunt.
PS, LOVE the title of this post.
P.S. Today on the way to recess duty, we were having a quiet moment in the car to talk about stuff, and I started telling the Easter story to my sidekick. He said, "Oh, I already know that story." But I asked him to let me keep telling it, because he might not remember ALL the details. When I got to the resurrection, I ended by saying "...and THAT is why we celebrate Easter! Because we're so happy that Jesus gave us the gift to be able to be resurrected again, too." And he said "Oh. I guess only the moms know that part." So I pointed out that now not only the moms knew it, but he did too, and I let him think about it. I could see his face in the rear view mirror, and he went from a contemplative expression to a smile, looking pleased that he was in on the secret. I told him it would be alright to tell people that it's not about the Easter bunny.
He then started asking me why we have eggs, if it's just about Jesus, and we talked about some of the symbolism behind a new life and starting fresh. He thought that was pretty cool. And so did I.
STM, That's the kind of gram I want to be to my grandkids. Love the funny bunny money tradition!
WHAT??? No Easter Bunny? j/k I LOVE that you weren't afraid to be honest with your little 4 year old. Very cool conversations going on there. Kudos to you!
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