Many of us have fond Easter memories. Dressing up. A lovely church service. Dinner with family.
Our children remember Easter egg hunts in the spring. There were two. A week or two before Easter our subdivision social committee had one on the subdivision common ground for the children. On Easter Sunday after church, their grandfather had one for them and their cousins.
Plastic eggs filled with candy would be hidden on the common ground by the subdivision social committee. Grandfather Smith would hide Easter treats and hard-boiled eggs decorated the day before by the children in his backyard. He also drew a map of where everything was hidden so none would be overlooked.
This year there was no Easter egg hunt in our subdivision due to the coronavirus outbreak. But the subdivision committee came up with an alternative idea for the subdivision’s children. They decided on two hunts – bear and Easter egg.
The idea came from a 1989 children’s book, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” by Michael Rosen. Many other area neighborhoods are doing this.
According to the subdivision social director, one week children could be looking for stuffed black bears, then brown bears, then bears with clothes, then a mixture of stuffed animals, and the week before Easter the children looked for decorated Easter eggs.
Residents perched bears of all kinds in front windows and on front porches. As the children and accompanying parents walked the neighborhood, keeping a social distance apart from everyone else, they could look for the animals or eggs. This was fun and provided exercise for the children and accompanying parents.
Not only was this fun for the children, but it provided something for the adults. They had to put the stuffed animals on the porch or in a front window and take their child on a walk through the neighborhood. This was fun for children and parents and gave each something to do while isolated.
And it provided an opportunity to converse with other parents and children. Returning to the old-fashioned idea of conversing, while keeping your social distance, was an added benefit.
In today’s electronic society, we often don’t spend enough time talking to others. We are on our phone or iPad and don’t make the time to really converse with one another face-to-face.