Of Bunnies, Eggs & Chocolate

This past Easter weekend was an especially exciting one for our family! I had never experienced first hand Brazilian Easter traditions until this year, and I must say, Santa Claus definitely has a HUGE rival in the Easter Bunny around here. I asked a friend one day how their family celebrated Easter and especially how it worked for the children, and this is what she said: Long before Easter, her daughter (currently age 7) starts looking at all the different large easter egg options in the stores for the ones that she thinks will have her preferred toys or candies. She then writes a list for the Easter Bunny of the ones she would like most. On the night before Easter, she then leaves out some carrots and a bowl of water for the Easter Bunny to snack on when he visits her house. The next morning he will have left a hidden “nest” with treats and eggs and such. (Let me clarify here that hard-boiled eggs are not normally involved in these festivities, but rather large, hollow chocolate eggs wrapped in fancy papers. There are some chocolate bunnies and smaller chocolate eggs as well, but as they do not have as many nice toys inside, the children prefer the big eggs.)  There will be a few bunny foot print clues and some dirt and things that mark a trail for the little girl to follow, which eventually lead to the nest. Then of course she gets to open all of her eggs, ignore the chocolate shells (or at least most kids do), and play with her new treasures.

While we definitely enjoy trying out local traditions for all of the holidays and special events, we also tried to incorporate a lot of my family's American traditions as well. (I'm just not sure I can let an Easter go by without coloring some hard-boiled eggs!)  This proved to be a bit more of a challenge than expected. Since there were no egg-dying kits for sale in any of the stores here, we decided just to use the good ol' reliable food coloring, like our family used when I was growing up. :) There was only one problem: None of the stores we normally shop at carried food coloring. There is one candy/party goods store that we were pretty sure would have some, but on the day before Easter (yeah, we kinda procrastinated this one a bit) when we stopped by, there was no parking and long lines at each check-out register. (Remember Walmart the day before Christmas?) So rather than hunting 30 minutes for parking and waiting another hour to check out for just a few bottles of food coloring, we decided to try one more grocery store. Still nothing. It was time to get creative: Jello!! It comes in so many colors, and stains everything it touches! Surely it would work on eggs too!! :) (Kool-Aid was my other idea, but here there is no Kool-aid powder without sugar already added... Equally sticky either way.)  So we bought some jello packets, went home, poured in some boiling hot water, and dunked those eggs. 

We got some pretty nice colors, I thought. Some of the eggs ended up with some extra sugary spots and were a bit sticky. But after they dried, they weren't that sticky at all. Lissie had a great time helping us put the eggs in each cup and trying to take them out by herself. Occasionally after we had taken them out to dry, she decided they needed another dip and tried to put them back in. Still, mission accomplished! Easter Eggs colored – check! :)

Then on Sunday, of course we went to church. Then afterward, during the family lunch gathering, that Easter Bunny found us! We hid (read “placed in the grass and other spots in plain site”) the colored eggs, and since Lissie was the only child there, she got to do all the hunting. 

She got off to a rough start, but after the first few, she caught on and had a great time picking up eggs and dropping them in her basket. Easter Eggs Hunted – check! 

Now, about those other big chocolate Easter Bunny eggs: Lest you should think she was at all left out, I think it is safe to say that each Great-Aunt & Uncle, Grandparents, and Great Grandparent present had a special egg for Lissie, and (being the extremely generous and sweet people they are) some for Tiago and I as well. I was overwhelmed by their love – and chocolate! - and it definitely made for an Easter we won't soon forget!!