Were there Easter Bunnies when we were children?

 

Mary Pickford the silent film star taken in 1923; she is painting eggs.

Hi R

Hope you are having a lovely Easter and that the Easter bunny visited you in Wisconsin.  The weather here has been perfect Autumn  - my favourite time of the year.

Passing on an Easter blog from Richard, a friend of ours who hosted a Good Friday BBQ where the Easter egg question was raised.   
Sweetly C
ps  G and I have polished off one medium sized egg between us today - but it was dark chocolate which I read is not really too bad for you. More about that soon. 

Were there Easter Bunnies when we were children?

Well there were certainly Easter eggs; but in our household these tended to be chicken eggs that we had either hard boiled or sucked (to make hollow shells ) that were boiled wrapped in onion skins and/or painted.

Confectionary eggs were those hollow hard sugar ones (the best) or chocolate (preferably with a filled centre) that my father had bought in the city. I also remember hollow sugar rabbits.

By the time I had my own children it was full-on chocolate. Emily was into delayed gratification and often still had a stash of last year’s eggs in the fridge a year later. All the kids were more into the mythology; and the Easter egg hunt; than the actual chocolate. It was like the reindeer on the roof and Santa at Christmas. As Emily can attest, one Easter night the Bunny broke our fence when he hopped into the back garden carrying his giant sack of eggs for every child in Sydney. Julia continued to provide a wonderful audience-participant for the hunt; even when the older ones were past it.

When I was really little in England (up to two and a half) rationing was still in place; so that I had not seen commercial sweets. When passing through New York on our way to Australia I was taken to a candy store and told I could have anything I wanted. I had no idea what they were; and (famously in family lore) chose a packet of chewing gum.

As both my parents are dead I can’t ask them what they had before the war; but Easter Rabbits and eggs certainly existed, as can be seen by the picture above.

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