Eathter Bunny

Easter was always a fun holiday when I was a kid. My Dad would make finding our Easter baskets a treasure hunt that we discovered by following his rhyming clues all over the house and garden.

Then I grew up and moved to Rochester, NY where, happily, I was only a day's drive from my best friend, Wendy, who lives in Michigan. We often shared Easters, especially once her two children came along, and I resurrected Dad's treasure hunts for them. When they were tiny, we read the clues to them and they went to look for the next one. As Mark learned to read, he became the one who unraveled the clues for his little sister. And, finally, one Easter she could read them herself. They loved Easter and always enjoyed their baskets filled with some candy but also toys and toothbrushes - they didn't seem to mind that their Fairy Godmother was a little bit geekish.

Once I moved to California, those special Easters have become less frequent; the kids were older and we lived farther apart. Still, when Mark was in college in southern California, he and his cousin and a friend of theirs drove up to spend a delightful Easter with us. I trotted out the rhyming clues again and, to my delight, these nearly grown up youngsters went right back into kid mode and giggled their way around the house and garden looking for their baskets.

Yesterday came a box in the mail from Mark and Pamela's mother, a complete surprise. Inside was Mother Rabbit and, from inside her, all her little bunnies, carved in wood in wonderfully realistic rabbit poses. Plus a big orange carrot, a bushy green plant and two kinds of wooden flowers to decorate my Easter table.

Happy Easter, everybody. Happy Spring.