***If you want to impress your kids (and/or embarrass your teens with your nerdiness), please continue***
Why do we do what we do for our kids on Easter Sunday? I’m talking about the non-religious stuff that parents all do because with always have.
When you stop to think about it, common, secular Easter traditions seem odd – dying hard-boiled eggs, cramming our mouths full of jelly beans, and taking photos with a giant (often scary looking) bunny at the local mall.
In this Dork Dad Diary submission, let’s drive into a topic that is sure to impress your littlest ones, bore your partner, and embarrass household teenagers: Non-religious Easter traditions.
The Easter Bunny
The first stop on the “embarrass your kids” train is the quintessential symbol of secular Easter: the scary rabbit that hides eggs around the yard (or living room). How did a rabbit come to symbolize all things Easter?
Bunnies, alas, are creatures that represent fertility. If you have owned pet rabbits, you understand. Closely linked to birth, then, is new life, rebirth, and the idea of Spring. Most historical accounts of the Easter Bunny, in fact, connect the rabbit symbol to pagan traditions (like Eostre) and credits German immigrants for brining the tradition to American shores during the 1700’s.
Easter Eggs
Those colorful eggs that our kids enjoy dying so much, you might guess, are closely tied to the same theories as the origins of the Easter Bunny – pagan traditions that permeated American shores through immigrants long ago.
An interesting factoid to bore your children with: PaaS sells over $16 million of Easter egg dying kits each year. The company, whose moniker comes from the Dutch word for Easter, was founded in the 1800’s by American William Townley. The first PaaS kits were sold in 1881 for a nickel – the equivalent of ~$20 in 2022 dollars. Suddenly, I feel okay about spending $4 on ours this year!
Easter Egg Hunts
After the household’s eggs are colored, the fun really kicks off with the grandest of non-religious traditions: the “Easter egg hunt”. The literature about the history of hiding and finding eggs is linked to the usage of the bunny as the holiday’s symbol (bunnies + fertility = eggs).
Interestingly, though, there seem to be differences in the reason for hiding eggs. Some stories detail the fact that eggs were a forbidden food so coveted that they needed to be found. Other tales suggest that an eggs’ accessibility for the poor helped further enhance the popularity of the tradition of hiding them as a gift to kids.
In our home, we hide plastic eggs filled with candy while leaving the those real eggs in the fridge to be eaten later (or maybe before). The kids (even the teens) scramble around the yard to find special eggs that house $1 bills. One very special eggs contains $5. While we’ve amended the traditional egg hunt a bit, watching the older kids covet the “money eggs” is great.
Easter Candy
Easter is my wife’s favorite time to snack on seasonal treats. She’s not alone.
Easter is the #2 candy selling time in America, its sales paling only to Halloween. After a record revenue year in 2021 ($4 billion), sales are expected to increase in 2022 by up to 7%. 91% of Americans will eat candy during the holiday. This begs the question: Who makes up the other 9%?
My favorite Easter candies are Starburst Jelly Beans – creating a spirited debate amongst my kids about whether they’d rather eat chocolate or jelly beans. Statistics show that jelly beans amount to approximately 1/3 of Easter candy sales annually. So chocolate wins (again).
The most popular Easter candy in 2022 are Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Eggs (Cadbury Eggs are a “close second”).
Easter Presents
As with most secular twists to religious holidays, gift giving on Easter is expected by my children. Expectations are low for gifts – often a “need” for the end of the school year, clothing for the impending nice weather ushered in my Spring, or a simple toy that can be used outdoors. We spend roughly $25-50 per kid each Easter.
My kids, though, will talk about lavish gifts of friends that cost far more. I have yet to figure out if that is for real or a negotiating strategy. Either way, it is likely that parents will be providing more than candy to their kids on Easter Sunday morning.
How much is appropriate to spend?
On average, consumer are projected to spend $179 on Easter in 2022. Spending on gifts outpaces that of candy expenditures by $5 (gifts account for ~$30 of the budget, candy is allocated ~$25). These figures cement Easter, at least commercially, as Christmas’ lone holiday gift-giving rival.
I cannot wait to share all of this information with the family this weekend. I imagine other dads might, too. We will put the cargo shorts, give the reading glasses a rest, and enjoy their family – whether in the secular traditions of buying stuff, or by attending a local religious service.
Whatever you might do on Easter Sunday, show your kids how much you know about the day armed with these Dork Dad Diaries anecdotes. These facts will, no doubt, leave your children utterly indifferent, totally embarrassed, or completely dismissive of this newfound, candy-laced knowledge.
Happy Easter!
