02/04/2021 The Annual Easter Egg Hunt

Chocolate for breakfast is completely acceptable on Easter Sunday, just like a Buck’s Fizz at 9am is definitely allowed on Christmas Day morning. Easter, like Christmas, is a time where we go wild for chocolate no matter what our age.

I now get more Easter eggs bought for me than I did as a child! I get some from my parents AND some from my in-laws. It’s not even as if I’m a chocoholic. I’d take a bag of Doritos over chocolate any day of the week. (Of course, I can’t deny that Easter egg chocolate seems to taste better than any other chocolate. How does the same brand of chocolate you eat in a bar just taste yummier in egg-shape form?!)

Easter is a time for releasing our inner child and enjoying old traditions and the tradition of buying and receiving eggs is one that we cling on to every year. We happily receive eggs as adults and happily buy eggs for other adults.  At the age of thirty, receiving an egg from my parents reminds me that I am still their child even though I’m a grown woman. For my parents, giving me an egg is a reminder of that too. Over the years, so many things change but some things don’t and that’s nice.

I think this is why my mum and dad still arrange an Easter egg hunt for me and my sister and now my husband! They buy a fair few big eggs and then get a big bucket of those small foil covered eggs that can be hidden discreetly in nooks and crannies. We end up in hysterics trying to out-scramble each other to well-known hiding places in mum and dad’s living room and dining room. (All other areas of the house are out of bounds.) Every year the hunt gets harder as Dad manages to find the most obscure hiding places. We are sent away upstairs while him and mum set up. A time limit is set and whoever can find the most eggs in the allocated time is the winner. It’s very rare that all the eggs are found and it’s pretty much guaranteed that Dad will forget where he’s hidden one every single year.

It may sound ridiculous, childish and it might be silly, but we love it. To us it’s no different to playing games at Christmas time.

We are such a competitive family. It’s not about wanting to win the most chocolate as it all gets shared out equally after and tucked into over a cup of tea. It’s purely about the pride of winning. It really is a bit of daft fun (that’s taken very seriously when the hunt is on).

We even managed to do the hunt last year over a video call believe it or not. Instead of playing individually though, we played as a team with me and Dan trying to help my sister find the eggs at mum and dad’s with the aim being to see how quickly we could locate all of them. This turned out to be even more hilarious than usual. We barked instructions out like, “Check the light fittings!” as she ran around frantically holding the phone out for us to see what she could see. This year we will be doing the same as Covid restrictions are still upon us.

I think the annual egg hunt will be a family tradition that gets passed down through the generations, the age of the participants being irrelevant. You’re never too old for an Easter egg and you’re never too old for an egg hunt. There’s certainly no fun in pretending you’re too cool for either.

Easter, like all holidays, is a time for family and in my opinion the best type of family time is when you’re all having a laugh together not taking yourselves too seriously! If chocolate’s included, then that’s a bonus.