The Duttons: Easter Revisited

A few weeks ago we got to celebrate Luke's first Easter. Being a brand spankin' new parent, I was bursting with excitement and thoughts about what the holiday meant to me growing up and what it will mean to Luke as he develops. For my family, Easter was all about traditions. My mom would boil a few dozen white eggs for us. Then my sisters and I would then dye them using the little colored pellets that dissolve in water. Often times some of the eggs would crack during the boiling process, but we didn't care. Into the colorful cup it would go.
On Easter morning our easter baskets would be filled and our brightly colored dyed eggs would be scattered throughout the yard. As it was with every morning at our house, we couldn't hunt for the eggs until we had finished our breakfast. I can remember the conversations I had with my sisters as we spotted a turquoise egg in the tree or a magenta egg in the river. None of us were savvy or skilled enough to keep our findings secret and we were often just as excited to share our discoveries with each other.
Upon completion of finishing our breakfast we would line up (more like gather) at the front door and wait for our parents to release us into the yard to find all 24 eggs. I don't think we ever succeeded in finding all of them, maybe the Easter Bunny got hungry and ate a few? Or maybe it was the Easter Bunny's way of keeping us busy for a little while longer. Hmmm....
After we were done with our hunt we would 'dress up' in our fanciest Easter dresses, complete with tights (so not necessary in Hawaii) patent leather white shoes (all of which were no longer white due to years of being handed down) and pastel colored dresses with frills and ruffles. My mom would make deviled eggs, often colored in shades of blue pink and purple due to the cracks and our desire to have dark dyed eggs, and we would head to the Morriss family Easter party.
We did this year after year and my mind is filled with memories of bad moods, baskets tipping, Easter bunny sightings and confusion about why people liked the taste of Peeps and Cadbury Eggs. So now I am a new mom and Pas and I get to think about the traditions we will have for Luke and how we will explain what Easter is as he grows up. So what is Easter?!
I read Luke the children's bible story of the rebirth of Christ, but then I began to wonder... How is the act of dying eggs related to Jesus? Why does the Easter Bunny hide the eggs? Did we want him/her to hide them or was it a sneaky bunny who 'stole' our eggs and dropped them along the way? What is the connection between a bunny and eggs? How big, or small, is this said Easter Bunny? Is there any connection between these traditions that we all seem to celebrate and the rising of Christ? I am assuming Luke won't ask us these questions for a few years, so hopefully Pas and I will have a plan in place when he does.
Thankfully this year, at the ripe old age of 2 months, Luke was happy wearing a bunny hat, a bunny onesie, listening to his story of Jesus and spending the morning with his Great Grandmother (GG or Nonnie to him), his cousins, his aunt and uncle and his doggy brother Finn. Pas and I wore our Sunday best (a least the best I could fit into post baby) and made a fritatta to share. It was a beautiful spring day and I am so glad we didn't have to answer any questions about the Easter Bunny!