Easter egg hunts - how?

[lajn]

Every Easter morning we have an Easter egg hunt with the eggs that the kids have decorated themselves. The bunny hides them, and then leaves some chocolate.

How do you explain the egg hunt part? Does the bunny hide them? Does the bunny come into your house and take your eggs? Do you leave them outside for the bunny to hide? Or does the bunny just use his own eggs?

[K1329]

Our Easter egg hunts (family, school, community group) all do not involve the bunny in any way. The kids know that the adults hide the eggs. My dd and ds even help make the eggs we contribute. But, all of our egg hunts are around Easter. We don't actually do any on Easter.

ETA: for clarity - the kids help me make the eggs by stuffing candy/toys in the plastic ones! We've also decorated some paper ones before, but, we don't actually hide the real eggs we've decorated...

[SunshineJ]

We don't use eggs the kids decorated for our hunt. LOL I spend a few hours filling the plastic ones, and then the "Easter bunny" hides them to surprise the kids with. But, my kids aren't totally oblivious and easily figured out that mom is the one hiding them (never really tried to hide that fact from them to be honest).

Timely post - I just started picking up the stuff for the egg hunt yesterday. This year we'll have a LOT of kids, so my 300 eggs may have to go up!

[Alyantavid]

We don't do the Easter bunny at all. My kids know we hide them and love finding them. I use the plastic ones to hide and we always color real eggs as well.

[kalirush]

We don't celebrate Easter, but we do all the eggs-and-bunny stuff on the Equinox. We don't really do the Easter bunny as a thing, though. We have baskets in the morning, and then decorate eggs. Then some adults go out and hide the eggs and then the kids go hunt them. It's just a fun game for the holiday.

[One_Girl]

The bunny brings his own candy and eggs and hides them inside or outside depending on the weather.

[jeanine123]

We also don't use the eggs the kids decorated. I'm not hiding real eggs outside since I'm not confident we'll find them all and the thought of coming across a rotten egg in the middle of July is so not appealing to me. We hide plastic eggs that have stickers in them for the kids to find. We don't really discuss the Easter Bunny at all.

[nextcommercial]

We never really did the "Easter Bunny" thing.

I'm not against that at all. We totally went the whole nine yards with Santa and I loved it.

I just never got into the "Easter Bunny' part. So, I always knew the baskets were from my mom. My daughter always knew the baskets were from me. They always knew it was the grownups hiding the eggs. Mostly because we sent them inside while we hid them outside. So, it was pretty obvious.

Besides, we went once so my daughter could sit on the easter bunny's lap... he was scary, and clearly not a real easter bunny.

[carfreemama]

We do the Easter bunny. In fact, we LOVE the Easter bunny. But I am gently introducing the idea that the Easter bunny MAY be human... After all, DD is 6 and is starting to ask some questions...For now, she knows that I "help" the Easter bunny; so I don't know if that might work for you.

If you want to keep your current tradition, I would suggest setting them out the night before for EB to hide. I think that sounds the most plausible; as plausible as a great big bunny delivering Easter treats, that is!

[Storm Bride]

We do the Easter bunny for baskets. The egg hunt is later in the day, and dh and I hide the eggs while the kids are upstairs. We use the the eggs the kids have decorated.

It won't be this year, but one day I really am going to do what my mom did when we were young. We had ducks, so we blew out a couple dozen duck eggs (my mom used the eggs to make a cake for dessert after our Easter Sunday dinner). Once we had the shells completely empty and rinsed, we decorated them with felt pens, then painted over them with clear nail polish. My mom still has them (they're a bit dusty), almost 30 years later.

[limette]

Originally Posted by nextcommercial

We never really did the "Easter Bunny" thing.

I'm not against that at all. We totally went the whole nine yards with Santa and I loved it.

I just never got into the "Easter Bunny' part. So, I always knew the baskets were from my mom. My daughter always knew the baskets were from me. They always knew it was the grownups hiding the eggs. Mostly because we sent them inside while we hid them outside. So, it was pretty obvious.

Besides, we went once so my daughter could sit on the easter bunny's lap... he was scary, and clearly not a real easter bunny.

I don't know why. We love Santa, totally into that but the Easter Bunny? Maybe because Santa is fleshed out as a character more? The Easter Bunny just never comes up.

[gcgirl]

Originally Posted by jeanine123

We also don't use the eggs the kids decorated. I'm not hiding real eggs outside since I'm not confident we'll find them all and the thought of coming across a rotten egg in the middle of July is so not appealing to me. We hide plastic eggs that have stickers in them for the kids to find. We don't really discuss the Easter Bunny at all.

Bolding is mine. This is the advantage to having a DOG. We never had to worry.

We WILL do the Easter Bunny. I loved it as a kid. My parents used the eggs we decorated; we never had the plastic ones. We might have gotten a few plastic ones in our Easter baskets. I actually like the Easter Bunny better than Santa, I think. Maybe because it makes slightly more sense.

[LynnS6]

The Easter Bunny fills a basket and hides it.

The eggs, I fill and hide (and I don't use real eggs for all the reasons that people have said). So my kids don't think the bunny hides the eggs. That's a good thing because it's never enough to find them once. We have to hide and find them multiple times on Easter Day.

My kids have a very willing suspension of disbelief about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Ds knows the truth (he asked about 2 years ago and I told him), but that doesn't seem to stop his enjoying the whole process.

[CarrieMF]

The Easter Bunny comes in the house & hides the eggs we coloured around the house. Here there is usually too much snow, too many puddles/wet grass or too cold to do anything outside. The Easter Bunny fills the baskets.

[darcytrue]

Originally Posted by Alyantavid

We don't do the Easter bunny at all. My kids know we hide them and love finding them. I use the plastic ones to hide and we always color real eggs as well.

:

[karemore]

We don't hide real eggs, I thought they weren't supposed to be out of the fridge for long.

The easter bunny hides plastic eggs that we reuse every year. The first couple of years they were empty, but then eggs we got out at other places came with stuff in them so the easter bunny had to step up and start filling ours too....

The bunny leaves a carrot trail from DDs bedroom down the hall to the living room where her basket is waiting. The eggs are all hidden indoors.

[SunshineJ]

Originally Posted by jeanine123

We also don't use the eggs the kids decorated. I'm not hiding real eggs outside since I'm not confident we'll find them all and the thought of coming across a rotten egg in the middle of July is so not appealing to me. We hide plastic eggs that have stickers in them for the kids to find. We don't really discuss the Easter Bunny at all.

I remember that happening when I was a kid. If I recall correctly, it wasn't much longer until the EB began hiding plastic eggs!

[Just1More]

No bunny here, either.

But, my dd is one of those who last Christmas forcibly decided to believe in Santa. She's always known the truth. So, I threw up my hands and played, too. And then yesterday, she started asking Easter Bunny questions.

So, my kids KNOW, but I'm not sure what game dd is playing in her head.