The Easter Bunny

This is a post from 7-2-05 from my old blog that is closing down:


Did you know that the Easter Bunny keeps a list like Santa, and probably checks it twice? Yep. I have known that since I was a child.

Case in point:

Date - Easter about 1952

Place - 220 Saratoga Street

Chilton, Wisconsin

Family - The Meyers, staunch Missouri Synod Lutherans; Parents, Orrin & Florence; Children, Tom, 10; Mary Lou, 6; Jim, 4

The Saturday night before Easter; after dinner, after Sunday School lessons and memorization, and after baths; our mother brought down from the attic our Easter baskets to get ready for the Easter bunny. We left them, empty of course, on the kitchen table. It was a thoughtful act. Something to help the bunny out. While we were setting them up on the table, my father put on his Scotch hat, winter coat, and boots over his slippers (he was in his pj's too) and went to go outside. "Where ya going, Dad?" we all chimed in. "Never you mind. Never you mind." And out he went in the cold darkness to the garage. After just a couple minutes the cold from the early spring night came seeping into the kitchen as Dad carefully maneuvered in through the back hall with a bushel basket! With a smirk on his face, he placed it on the table, dwarfing our baskets. Mother was not happy, and insisted the dirty thing NOT be on the table, but if he insisted on having it, it must wait for the Easter Bunny on the floor. "Boy, am I going to get a lot of candy this year. Sure glad I thought of this!"

I went to bed that night absolutely upset with myself for not having thought of that--a bushel basket! What a great idea. The Easter bunny always filled our baskets to the top!

I was still kicking myself as the house woke up in the morning, and all three of us children rushed to see what the result was of Dad's great idea. We never even thought of looking for our own baskets.

Then I saw it.

I saw that bushel basket shoved sort of behind my dad's favorite chair, but not all the way in, not against the curtains or wall. I remember so clearly feeling sorry for the little bunny, and how hard he must have worked to shove thatbig basket full of candy that far from the kitchen into that spot. (Now, of course as an adult, I realize it was my mother protecting her drapes and walls, LOL.) All three of us kids rushed over, and with major, major excitement peered over the side and into the bushel basket.

GASP!

There, on the bottom, lay three of those awful-huge-jelly-bean-sort-of-candies that I have never in my whole life seen a human eat. And, with the awful-huge-jelly-beans lay a couple sticks that looked like they were shed from the weeping willow on the side of the house.

And,

even scarier,

there on the bottom, with the awful-huge-jelly-bean-sort-of-candies and the sticks, lay a note on a piece of folded over paper.

It was not for us to touch

We stepped back.

Dad, rubbing his hands together, came forward with our original excitement. "Boy, oh boy, this is gonna be good!" And he moved past us and looked in.

Stillness.

Slowly he picked up the note, quietly unfolded it, and read it in silence. We also were silent.

Waiting.

He hung his head, folded the note, and handed it to Mother. Mother snapped it open and with very little sympathy read: If you are this greedy next Easter you won't even get this. The Easter Bunny.

Later in the day at home after church, as we munched candy from our baskets, we would quietly go to our reprimanded father and sympathetically offer him some candy. He would take it with a humble thank you, and would sigh, I really learned my lesson. I really learned my lesson.

So did we.