SCENE: I’m driving in the car with my 5-year-old daughter in the back seat. She’s rambling on, as usual, and I get the requisite holiday question.
Macie: “Mom, is the Easter Bunny real?”
Me: “As far as I know he is.”
Macie: “How do you know it’s a boy? I think it’s a girl.”
Me: “I’ve just always thought it was a boy.”
Macie: “How does he pick up the eggs? He doesn’t have any hands.”
Me: (Sigh) “I’ve never really been sure about that either, Macie.”
Macie: “I think he just puts the eggs in the basket and runs around shaking them out on the ground so the humans can pick them up.”
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Hi, IJNR — that’s a cute story. Your daughter seems very perceptive. I recall my feelings about the Easter bunny when I was five. In my mind the bunny was definitely female. I was told that the bunny actually lays the eggs, just as chickens do. I felt that since the egg-laying chickens (hens) were girls, ergo, the Easter bunny was a girl. During Easter Sunday egg-hunts I also noted that girls usually found more eggs than boys, so I deduced that the eggs, having been laid in the most obscure and difficult to find places, must have been hidden by a female — bunny or otherwise. And in some ways I still hold that belief — how often do you hear this one from your husband: “Honey, where is the (fill in the blank)?
I also deduced that the colored eggs were produced especially for Easter Sunday egg-hunts (the plain ones are used to propogate the bunny species).
Incidentally, have you heard about the Easter bunny that laid HER eggs in the hen nest? The rooster came in, took one look at the multi-colors and ran out and killed the peacock.