The Bunny Day Delimma

Bunny Day at the Logan's started about twenty-five years ago. It was our answer to preserving the delightful tradition of hiding candy and still keeping it separate from the sacredness of Easter and the Savior's resurrection. I believe that good traditions are fun, and important to family life. There doesn't have to be a conflict between fun and spiritual. So, we started having Bunny Day. It was on Saturday, the day before Easter.

One Bunny Day Eve, we had a family over, good friends with an equal sized family. They decided they liked the idea of Bunny Day, so they even stayed the night so the two families could join in the fun the next day. That was the first time the candy was put on the fan. You turn off the fan. Put wrapped candy on the fan blades (unless you clean the fan first, who would want to put something you're going to eat on a dusty fan?), then in the morning when the children turn on the fan, candy flies everywhere. Raining Candy. Fun..


Well, over years, the tradition was that the parents hid the candy, and the children found it. Once the children found all of the candy (remember the wide range of ages) then they brought all the candy to the table and it was divided equally among the children and they refused to leave us out, so Neil and I received our portion as well.

Years passed. Chani became twelve. She didn't want to hunt eggs, she wanted to hide eggs. Okay, so when each child became twelve, they started hiding candy. Of course, in the morning, after all the candy was found, it was still equally divided.

Last year, my second youngest became twelve. She was so excited to be hiding the candy. That left ONE child to find all the candy. It was pretty lonely for Chrystal, but it passed quickly, drowned out by all the candy. Also, not breaking with tradition, when the kids divided the candy, they created equal portions not only for the ones at home, but for their married siblings family as well.

Surprisingly, when this year came around, Chalae - now thirteen - decided she didn't want to hide candy, she wanted to go back to finding candy. So we were back to two. And I told them to just divide the candy among those at home. (we bought a lot less)

So, then came the discussion. Now we are back to the topic of What Happens When a Big Family Grows Up.

Different things said by different children about a change in next year's Bunny Day (Chrystal will be eleven next year, that's almost twelve, right?)

We could just get baskets, fill them with candy and put them on the table.

We could all get baskets, then you could hide the baskets, we could find our baskets.

Son-in-law said: "She hid candy for me. What's with that? You look for candy all over and wonder if it is from Halloween? My family hid baskets."

Yeah. We could do that. We could hide baskets.

We could get a basket of candy then we could hide that candy, then everybody could get their candy back (how different is this? I'm confused, but listening)

We could get those plastic eggs, put candy in them, hide them around our yard (which sometimes has snow in it at this time of year) and find them.

Married daughter says, "Aren't we old enough that we shouldn't have to divide the candy?" (remember, this year was the first that the candy was divided ONLY among those still at home)

Next year, none of us are going to hide candy except Mom and Dad. Then we can all hunt.

Yeah, you could hide them in harder places.

Yeah. Except Danny will be almost three and Faith will be 1 1/2. They'll want to find the easy ones.

And so it goes. A successful, delightful family tradition of twenty-five years in the revamp phase. I don't know what we'll do next year. It's all about fun and family and we'll come up with something. But isn't it interesting all the conversation, the idea swapping, and that it included not just those at home but ALL our children (those present anyway). They want to plan something fun, something inclusive, and something that would do well for the next twenty-five years.

Two things are for certain. They want to continue Bunny Day. They want to involve all family members, not just those at home.

I love it!