The Dirt on How We Made the Easter Bunny a Little Too Real!
Written By Savvy Auntie Staff Writers
By Katelyn Fry
Eggs: check. Baskets: check. Carrots: check. Some dirt from the backyard: check. Just a few of the essentials for Easter morning for our family.
My niece, Mikayla, was seven one night before Easter and she, my sister and her husband, were spending the night at my house. Now that Mikayla was a little older, we were determined to give her an Easter experience she would never forget: we were going to bring the Easter Bunny to life!
The first step was telling her all about this mythical creature whom we called "the Santa Claus of Spring." We told her that a big, beautiful, furry white bunny hopped around from house-to-house on Easter Eve leaving little presents for the children. We explained that since he’s only a bunny and doesn’t have a sleigh like Santa, he couldn’t carry as many presents as Santa can... Still, I’ll never forget the way Mikayla’s eyes lit up at this news.
Next in our plan was carrots - the big ones with the long green stems still attached. We told her we were going to leave them out for the Easter Bunny as a snack.
“Do we have any other vegetables to leave him, too?!” she asked. My niece was getting pretty excited at this point. We let her raid the fridge and gather whatever we had - ultimately a handful of celery sticks, some lettuce and a tomato.
The sweetest letter in the sweetest handwriting.
We let her arrange the treats neatly on a plate. “Should I write him a note like I do for Santa?” she asked. And that's when the cutest letter I’ve ever read was written.
Dear Easter Bunny,
Happy Easter! We wanted to leave you some vegetables to bring on your trip. I hope it’s not too cold and you get to everybody’s houses safely. Thank you for coming to ours.
Love,
Mikayla
After my niece left the letter where the Easter Bunny would find it, it was time for bed. Getting her to go to sleep was nearly as difficult as it had been on Christmas Eve; my niece was determined to get a peek at the Easter Bunny!
The secret plan!
Once she was asleep, we grabbed my niece's pink and yellow Easter basket and filled it with a bunch of little gifts: a coloring book, crayons, her favorite candy, a book, a stuffed animal bunny, a movie, and a few little dolls from her favorite show at the time. We wrapped it up and looked for a good hiding spot, because, as we'd later explain, the Easter Bunny keeps things interesting and makes you search for your basket in the morning.
Then, we got really creative!
We took a piece of cardboard and added two pairs of three dots each of Elmer’s Glue, each in a triangle. Next, we grabbed some dirt and poured it on the cardboard and pressed the cardboard onto the floor a number of times, leaving what looked like bunny paw-prints leading in from the back door.
My sister and I then boiled a whole carton of eggs so that they would be ready for coloring the next morning, all while nibbling on the vegetables Mikayla had left out, leaving some on the plate and some scattered on the floor to make it seem like the Easter Bunny had enjoyed his treats in haste.
The next morning, my sister was putting coffee on when Mikayla ran into the kitchen shouting, “Did he come?! Did he come?!” Before any of us could even answer, she looked down and saw the footprints, and her jaw dropped so low it practically touched them on the ground. She gasped so genuinely and so innocently – it was one of the best sounds and facial expressions I’ve ever witnessed!
And then, she was off. Since we had made it look like the Easter Bunny had hopped around quite a bit, she began running around the house following the paw-prints trying to figure out where he went, and of course, searching for her basket. She got even more excited when she saw half-bitten carrots on the floor and most of the vegetables missing. “He did like them! He ate almost all of them!” she said, beaming.
My niece finally found her Easter Basket in the bathtub - but I don’t know if she was more excited about the presents or the search!
As we dyed our eggs before church, Mikayla was still in absolute awe over the morning’s events, saying things like: “I wonder where he lives;” “Do you think it’s really far?;” “I hope he got home okay;” and “I wish I got to meet him.”
A real Easter Bunny mess!
It wasn’t until we returned home from church that we all realized the consequences of making the Easter Bunny real. We thought we were geniuses when we came up with the idea of the paw-prints but we had quite the mess to clean up. Our excitement had gotten the best of us and there were dirty paw-prints in every room of my house!
But, my niece's face when she walked into my kitchen that morning made all the cleaning up worth it. Still, we learned our lesson; we only scattered a little dirt on the floor for the few Easters that followed when she still believed in the Easter Bunny.
Mikayla is now sixteen and gets to help us set up the scene for her younger sister - and yes, we still add a little Easter Bunny paw-print dirt for effect. It sounds crazy to deliberately bring dirt into your house, but if you decide to give it a try one Easter for your own nieces or nephews, I guarantee you, their reaction will be worth the extra sweeping.
Happy Easter!
Photo: IndigoLT
Published: April 12, 2017