“The Easter Bunny coming and leaving eggs, hiding eggs around the house. So, when the kids woke up in the morning they’d, uh, find Easter eggs.”

“So yours were in the house?”

“Yes. It was in the house. It wasn’t like we did up at Yosemite and stuff. We changed it cuz when we went camping at Yosemite, we changed it to hide the eggs around the forest, or the trees and stuff when we were camping.”

“I sure hope you guys counted the number of eggs you hid in your house cuz you’d be finding something smelly later.”

“Well or the dogs would find them.”

“And then there was, uh, the time when we had done the camping and Yosemite and Easter egg hunts so many times that one year it was raining so hard that we left, and you were concerned that the Easter Bunny would never be able to find us. Cuz we weren’t in Yosemite. which was kind of funny.”

“ And then you did them in the, or what was it, in the hotel?”

“Yeah, we stayed at a hotel and I went out out, and colored eggs and we hid them all over the hotel room and in your bed and everywhere.”

Easter, a very religious, Christian holiday, follows a different path for some, particularly in our more secular, commercialized American culture. It’s all about the bunny, Peeps, and chocolate. And, personally, the family tradition of camping in Yosemite and searching for decorated eggs has always been a highlight of my year. Perhaps it neglects the original, truer origins of the holiday, but at least it will never be forgotten in one way at least.

The Easter Bunny, and basically everything else that has to do with the holiday, painted eggs, Peeps, deviled eggs, jelly beans, is so far removed from the original Christian roots of the holiday. But nonetheless the holiday and at least some of the traditions have survived the centuries in one way or another. Only time will tell what may become of them.