E.B. White

As this Easter was only the third Easter away from family, I was feeling nostalgic. Chris, my husband, and I started talking about what we used to do on Easter and what we were going to do for Ethan once he was old enough to appreciate the Easter Bunny.

First, we discussed who is the Easter Bunny. This may seem like a fairly simple and straight forward answer. However, in my family we always referred to the Easter Bunny by his formal name, E.B.White. Now, I had always assumed (yes, I know what that means) that everyone understood that meant Easter Bunny White. I referred to Mr. White in this manner and Chris thought I had spent too much time in the Easter candy. That the sugar was starting to erode my brain. From there we moved on to a more fundamental difference: Easter Baskets.

Chris always had his basket placed on the dinner room table waiting for him. Perhaps a few times it was lightly hidden. I was incredulous. I once spent 17 hours trying to locate my Easter basket. (it was hidden under a pillow at the end of my bed that I never moved or used.) In my family's house it was not only how well the baskets got hidden, there were rules attached to the search. There were certain areas of limits, naturally, and you always had to leave things better than when you found them. In other words, the entire house would get cleaned from top to bottom while in the vain search for chocolate bunnies.

Places where our baskets were hidden were very creative and required the use of our "little gray cells" as Hercule Poirot would state (Agatha Christie). It all started out innocently enough with dishwashers, washer and dryers. Then it advanced to being inside the styrofoam and inside my mom's Serger box. With it's final destination located in the upstairs library in the hidden passageway. (It was a large house in Louisiana where there were hidden passage ways and rooms behind the bookcases of certain rooms.) Or being hidden in a t-shirt, in the camping cooler, in a large box of books located at the back of the under stair closet. My mom loved that one, it meant that whole closet got cleaned out very well, which it desperately needed. I questioned her this year about that particular one. If the basket was all the way back there, why didn't they put everything back better than when they found it. She said then I would have known something was up becuase it would be clean. Right.

As my sister (Kelly) and I got older, it became infinitely harder. All the cereal boxes on the top of the refrigerator were sliced apart and meticulously taped together with Kelly's basket inside. The bottom of our recliner was removed, my basket inserted and the liner stapled back on. The sofa pillow had it's stuffing partially removed and the basket was inserted. The pillow was than re-stuffed, re-sewen and used as a foot rest by my father while he watched us desperately search.

When we claim we looked everywhere, my parents would state that if that were indeed true, we would be enjoying some chocolate right now! Eventually my dad would give us each a riddle that would lead to our baskets. The riddles were always complete gibberish until we found the baskets. He claimed that E.B.White left a note for him stipulating the rules of the search and the riddles that were to assist Kelly and I in our hour of need. After retelling all this to my husband, he laughed and said he loved it. I told him that after 17 hours of searching and cleaning an entire house, a chocolate bunny has never tasted so good!