Easter Tradition

Our holiday traditions are highly portable. We've moved so often we couldn't tie ourselves down to a geography. Wherever we are, we can do the things that speak to us of celebration.

So today we had our traditional easter candy hunt. That means that last night I spent far too long packaging up candy in small cellophane wrapped bunches, tied with different colored ribbons so each child, when it finds something, knows at once who the rightful owner is; saves a lot of squabbling. Then this morning I hid them around the house. The rest of the morning went by tradition too - the kids found the easy ones quickly (very few this time), naturally located their siblings' candy long before they found their own, and eventually settled down to a beautiful community spirit of helpfulness in the theory that cooperation would produce more candy quickly. When about half of the packets were found they gave up to the point that I needed to give hints (easy candy hunts are for sissies; if you can't think to look inside the third oven mitt from the back then you don't really want those jelly beans).

And, again by tradition, I didn't bother to write down where I had stashed everything. So if you come across five Easter smarties with a gold ribbon round them, or a small package of jelly beans, just let us know. This is why we don't hide real eggs.