Saturday, April 9, 2011

A giant bunny or a man in a costume?

While we were at the park the other day a little boy who couldn't have been much older than my 7 year old daughter, over heard us talking about our plans to see the Easter Bunny this weekend. The boy then told my daughter that the Easter Bunny was really just a man in a costume. I quickly jumped in with a "No, he's wrong" but in that split second she looked truly heartbroken. This seems to be an epidemic among elementary school children. My friend's 6 year old came home one day very upset because another kindergardner had told her the same thing.

I asked people on Facebook about this and the general opinion seems to be that by the time kids reach about 7 or 8 years old, they no longer believe, that they're pretty much just humoring us. Can that really be true? And if so, how did it happen? Is our society so bad that our children can no longer believe in the magic of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, or Santa Clause? How can we fix this? Is it even possible? Have we as parents gotten lazy? Are we so busy and self-involved that we don't take the time to make holidays special and memorable anymore? Have candy and gifts become more important than family and friends?

No matter what life throws at us, we always try to do something special for our kids during the holidays. This year for Easter, we visited the Easter Bunny and had free pictures taken, made Easter drawings to hang in our windows, baked Easter cookies, and the actual holiday isn't even here yet! For St. Patrick's Day we all wore green and my daughter wore green eyeshadow to school. (Which she still talks about!) And at Christmas time we made snowflakes for our windows, and had a cookie decorating party where Santa and Mrs. Clause made a special guest appearance. All these small things make such a difference to our children. It gives them priceless memories to hold onto and cherish when their worlds get turned topsy turvey.

The moral of this story? Don't let your children give up on the magic. Make the effort to do the special things that make the holidays and just being a kid so special.

Feel free to comment and tell me about special holiday memories or traditions that you and your family share. Happy Easter everybody!

P.S.
I found this site last night where you can get personalized letters from the Easter Bunny.
http://www.theholidayspot.com/easter/bunny_letters/
Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for coming by my humble blog to read my thoughts on the very icky Skinny Girl Margarita!

    I would like to award you with the "Versatile Blogger Award" Follow my link to see what's next!

    http://thebitchinspot.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-received-versatile-blogger-award-from.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm new to blogging so I'm not sure what the "Versatile Blogger Award" means, but I can't help but be thrilled anyway. lol Thanks for reading my post! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Well then you and I are in the same boat! I am also pretty new to this. I gather it is an excuse for us newbies to go in search of blogs to follow and then bestow the award on other newbies as we find them. =]

    ReplyDelete
  4. sounds like a great idea to me! :)

    ReplyDelete