Yesterday Annie and I were driving to the grocery store and I was rambling on about lord knows what in an effort to avoid having to listen to the "FAIRIES!!!" (themesong from Secret of the Wings) song for the 15,756th time. The topic eventually ran around to Easter. I explained that Jesus died and rose again and Annie responded when prompted with "yeah" so I am sure she's 100% sure of the reason for the season.
Then I started to prep her for the easter egg/bunny situation. And I realized I also need prepping. Other parents: What's the story here? I realize the easter bunny comes and hides the eggs, but is he also responsible for the easter basket goodies? How do you explain the rows of easter swag in the store that end up in their baskets if humans are not involved? Or do we just ingore those rows completely while the children are with us? I clearly need to put a bit more thought into these things before I start spouting off because my description of Easter morning went a bit like this:
Me: Mommy and Daddy will get up and hide eggs from the Easter bunny. We also got you a basket full of treats!
Annie: TWEESSSH!
Me: Yep! And there will be TWEESH in the eggs too!
Annie: EGGSH!
So in this scenario we are apparently the egg middle man and the gift basket is from the bunny, which doesn't make any sense from an efficiency standpoint. I don't think that's how it goes down in other houses and I need to make sure my story matches up with the masses. I have a feeling it doesn't. I have a feeling the EB is getting all the credit for both egg hiding and basket of tweesh. I am not sure how I feel about that. I mean, Santa already gets all the credit for the sweet Christmas presents. I don't know why we as parents so willingly hand over credit to mythical beings for our gifts we give our children and then get all the blame for lying to them for 10 years. Seems like a bad arrangement.
But, like I said, I will play ball here I just need to know the story. Who gives what? Is it bunny 100%? And while we are on topic, do you all give gifts from Santa and from parents? We have skated by these first few years because Annie had the attention span of a sparrow and didn't speak English. I think that ship has sailed.
I once read that a family gives their child three gifts from "Santa" because Jesus got three gifts. If they complain you drop the "so you think you deserve more than Jesus?" line. Genius.
I don't know if I am cut out for all of this. If Annie makes it to 3 and still believes in the Easter Bunny, that will be an Easter miracle.
Annie, if you are 7 and happen to read this, Santa and the Easter Bunny exists. Mommy's just confused.
I am still taking advantage of the fact that Avery still doesn't get much of any meaning for Santa/Easter Bunny this year (other then that she is terrified of them in person). I'm just going to give her a basket filled with (my favorite kind of) candy and a couple little things. So I have a whole year to come up with something clever to incorporate the resurrection and the secular bunny together.
ReplyDeleteAnd I am totally stealing the 3 gifts rule at Christmas.
Isn't that great? I think I read that on Momastery. Their kids give them their lists and the parents (or Santa) get the top 3 and then the rest of the list is distributed to family. My sister's inlaws have a rule that they can't get over 3 gifts for their kids and of the 3, they have to be something they can wear, play with, or read. One of each. So they can't get 3 toys. I thought that was good too.
DeleteChase still doesn't get the Easter Bunny thing...other than she thought he was cool when she met him and didn't think much of the giant box of Easter eggs that people were hiding at the egg hunt we went to. I think you still have a year to figure this out. Me on the other hand....let me know what you find out. We'll have to get our stories straight before the kids start talking to each other over Christmas meal.
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