Tales of a Slacker Easter Bunny

A week ago when I asked my sons, ages 14 and 16, if they might not be a little old for an Easter egg hunt, they looked at me as if I’d shot Bambi.

Too old for an egg hunt?  Never!

Now some might say this is a case of arrested development, but I’d argue it’s selective arrested development at most. Their own small world and the world around them is in constant flux; they hold fast to holiday traditions to be a constant in their lives.  

My kids love the smell of the turkey cooking on Thanksgiving morning and playing Risk with their cousins after a noisy meal with at least one awkward toast. And taking a hayride to pick out pumpkins at Byler’s Farm near Slatedale during Lehigh County’s Open Gate Farm tour just before Halloween.

Every year they look forward to watching Jean Shepherd’s “A Christmas Story” (“You’ll shoot your eye out!”) and slogging through mud to cut down a Christmas tree at Pine Brook Hollow tree farm near Macungie.

They even like waking up at 6 a.m. on Christmas morning so the two of them can spend an excruciating couple of hours wondering what’s inside the packages under the tree before the adults in our extended family finally get up and they’re allowed to open them.

And they love a good egg hunt.

They hold on tight to these rituals even as my grasp on the holiday trappings becomes more tenuous. Most parents start out like gangbusters in introducing their wee ones to Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or other traditions. Witness the visits to Santa, milk and cookies set out for him on Christmas Eve, the efforts to hide presents before the big day, disguising handwriting so the gift cards don’t give it away. This subterfuge takes work – work we’re glad to do because it makes the holiday magical for those in the wonder years and that magic spills over to us.  

But eventually, the child who delighted at opening a present of a longed-for toy grows up to be the teenager who would largely prefer cold, hard cash.  No sugarplums dancing in those heads -- more like portraits of Andrew Jackson. 

So we Santa’s elves can get a bit shoddy in our craftsmanship of the holidays. The gifts get smaller and thinner until most can fit into an envelope or an iPod case.

And it’s not just Christmas. I used to be a Tooth Fairy in good standing – making the switch of $5 for the lost tooth under the pillow of a sleeping child without a hitch. But if you have two children with 20 baby teeth per kid, a Tooth Fairy can get slipshod after a while. After 30 teeth, she might not show up the first night a tooth is under the pillow. She might not have a fiver on her or even five crumpled singles. She could be having a drink with the Easter Bunny. 

For the most part, our kids are understanding about this slide into Slackerdom. Though this year when they found a 10-dollar bill in their Easter baskets they asked if the Easter Bunny wasn’t just paying them for a back allowance. 

The Bunny, mind you, had thought of that.