In the picture above, the Lions are taking the empty plastic eggs, filling them with a variety of candies, and putting them into the gray container. This set of eggs was for a particular age group. When they finished it, they took away the filled container, and then started over with another set of eggs for another age group.There were two groups of people working to fill the eggs. The people in the front room had much more colorful eggs, at least for this batch.
Last year the Lions encouraged the people to return the plastic egg containers after the kids had taken out the goodies, and they got back 1500 of the 2000 that they started with. If you go to the egg hunt, be a good sport and return them--it keeps the costs in check.There were a lot of different types of candy going into the eggs. I remember when my kids were smaller, the egg hunts had hard boiled eggs and the candy eggs that come in little cellophane packages. My kids did not care for either, so were not the best egg hunters. (I think the American Legion sponsored the egg hunts when my kids were young enough to participate, but I may be wrong.) However, they all had wonderful times and consider the Easter egg hunt in the park as one of the highlights of growing up in Rensselaer. (Note to my kids--please do not comment on this post.)
It is too bad that the park does not have better places to hide the eggs. I suspect that with nothing more than a large field and a whole lot of kids, there is not much that can be done. Usually with the older kids the egg hunt lasts all of a minute or two.Do you have any memories of egg hunts? Did you ever find one of the special eggs that rewarded you with a big Easter basket? Did you have to find your Easter basket on Easter morning? Did you get to hide Easter baskets for others to find on Easter morning? I am pretty sure that I enjoyed hiding baskets as a parent much more than trying to find them as a kid. How about you?
PS: If you take your kids to the egg hunt and they enjoy it, have them thank the Lions. The people who work to make this event a reality do not get anything else for the time they put into it.
PPS: Sorry for the delay. Our Internet connection failed last night as I was preparing this post and stayed off all night.
I don't think it's right of you to tell your kids not to comment!!
ReplyDeleteI loved the Easter egg hunts down at the park. The biggest thrill (besides the one year I got a special egg and won a basket) was finding an egg after the hunt that hundreds of kids had missed.
And the most memorable hunt at home was the hard-boiled egg that didn't get found because a visiting aunt had hid it and left before we realized it was still missing. That ended hiding hard-boiled eggs.
From an e-mail sent by a family member:
ReplyDeleteI was reading Dad's blog this morning and for some reason he didn't want us reminiscing on the Brookside park Easter Egg hunts in his comments. So I thought I'd leave my remarks here.
"My kids did not care for either, so were not the best egg hunters"
There were two simple reasons why we weren't great egg hunters. The first was that we were under a tremendous amount of pressure to succeed. You'd force us to practice in the backyard until our backs ached from your "snatch without slowing down from a run" technique. Secondly, your technique was flawed. What you needed to have taught us was how to intimidate the other kids and stake out a territory of our own on the field, so we could leisurely collect eggs at our own imperative.
That or you could have done what all the other parents did, and helped us out.
UA
ps. Hard boiled eggs are disgusting, and I always remember them sitting in the refrigerator for what seemed like months. eww
From another family member:
ReplyDeleteRemember the Easter egg hunt at St. A's the year where no one except us and maybe one other family showed up? Two old ladies had a blast coloring hard boiled eggs. They were so upset that there were so few people so we encouraged you to "have lots of fun" to make them happy. We tried to give away dozens and dozens of hard boiled eggs. bazillion ewwwww
And a third chimes in:
ReplyDeleteHahahahha, I remember teasing ... UA. "C'mon, that's the best you can do?!" It was a lot of fun..... for me..... and perhaps UM too.
UE
My memories of Easter egg hunts has nothing to do with eggs, but with pennies! Since all of our close relatives live in Louisiana, others in town "adopted" our family on holidays. Easters were spent at Phil and Shirley Wood's. They would hide pennies around the house for us to find. What great memories! And ipt kept the kids out of the adults hair all day! :)
ReplyDelete