The Easter That Almost Wasn't

Newsletter 2026-04-06

We almost canceled our family Easter this year. True to form, the holiday found a way to reemerge. As the Easter Bunny famously said, “I’ll be back.” As everyone knows, the Easter Bunny is Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2.

Originally, it looked like my parents weren’t going to host Easter this year. None of my siblings said they were coming back for the holiday. I made alternative plans to take Lola and the girls to see my aunt and uncle, who host Easter with my extended family in Iowa. We’ve missed it every time because my parents have always had a competing event. My mom and dad win by virtue of being six and a half hours closer. I make all major life choices based on gas prices. No sooner had I committed to Iowa than two of my siblings said they were, in fact, going to make it back to Illinois for Easter. I promptly violated social etiquette by bailing on my Iowa commitment, burning all bridges and guaranteeing permanent family estrangement. Or maybe none of my aunts and uncles noticed because there are a million people on that side of the family and it would be impossible to tell if I was there or not. I’m still not sure if they know my name.

I intended to kill two birds (but hopefully no people) with one minivan by making Betsy drive the hour to my parents’ house Saturday. She was nervous at the prospect of taking a vehicle up to interstate speeds for the first time. To calm her nerves, we went on a test run Thursday on a different stretch of interstate. I assured her beforehand that we would stay in the right lane the entire time and not pass anyone. I immediately broke that promise. The semi in front of us was going a little slow. I would rather die than travel slightly below the speed limit. In my defense, the most dangerous thing you can do on the interstate is go too slow and force other drivers to whip around you. I made sure Betsy went the speed limit the entire time, against her better instincts. She wanted to stay slow, which I appreciate. In most driving situations, overcaution leads to fewer insurance claims than overconfidence. It’s why insurance costs less for girls than boys. Dudes think they’re better at things than they really are. The actuary tables prove it. I made sure Betsy stayed fast enough to avoid becoming a traffic hazard herself while also not speeding. After our short test run, I felt she was ready for a longer drive on the interstate with the whole family. I told Betsy nothing could stop her. Mother nature proved me wrong.

The forecast Saturday morning called for rain all day. I knew Betsy could handle dry pavement, but slick roads were a different story. Even F1 drivers go skidding off the track in a downpour. I cancelled Betsy’s drive to our uncancelled family Easter. Betsy was perfectly content sitting in the back row while I drove in the pouring rain. It didn’t bode well for the rest of our uncancelled activities. Easter was supposed to be an outdoor event. My mom didn’t want to host a full-contact adult egg hunt in her living room.

Instead of more traditional cuisine, my dad made smash burgers for lunch. It was an upgrade. I’m canceling Easter ham going forward. Dad cooked the burgers on his fancy flat top grill, which my brother Mitchell got him for Christmas. Mitchell wasn’t shy to point it out. He won the last holiday, and he was ready to win this one, too. Everything is a competition with us. Our high insurance premiums are justified.

The rain had stopped by grilling time, but everything was still cold and wet. I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with no coat. When I changed drivers based on the weather, it didn’t occur to me to also adjust how I dressed. I was going to be at a disadvantage in any outdoor egg hunt. I selfishly pitched the idea of distributing eggs by some other method, like a nice indoor board game, but we couldn’t figure out an effective way to make the transition. Monopoly isn’t set up for easy Easter egg integration. There was no getting around it: If we wanted Easter eggs filled with dollar bills, we’d have to fight for them in the front yard as tradition demanded. I couldn’t wait to find out what fun new way I’d hurt myself this time.

Another group was delighted by the news: my own children. They were all promoted to the adult Easter egg hunt for the first time. Last year, only Betsy and Mae took part. The girls correctly estimated that they could maneuver around the old people to secure most of the money for themselves. It was a far cry from the kid Easter egg hunt, where everyone had their own color and got an equal number of eggs. The girls knew they had to get that lesser egg hunt out of the way before we could strike it rich. They pitched in hiding the youth eggs so we could hurry along to win their fortune.

There were only five nieces and nephews left in the youth egg hunt. The oldest of them is in early elementary school. Before we hid the eggs, he talked a big game. He insisted that he wanted to be challenged. I took that to mean he wanted his eggs to disappear into legend like Amelia Earhart or the treasure of Oak Island. I intended to make them vanish so completely that someday there would be a History Channel special blaming aliens. I wasn’t quite that good at hiding them. I mostly just stuck them up high on yard lights and windchimes. Kids never think to look up. Those didn’t take the kid too long to find. He struggled for longer with the one I stuck inside the cover for an exterior outlet. Weirdly, there was exactly enough space inside for one plastic egg. I can only assume it was explicitly designed for that purpose. It proved impossible to find. I gave hot and cold clues, but my nephew still couldn’t locate it because he didn’t know the outlet cover opened. To him, it looked like I expected him to break into the side of the house. If you don’t need a hammer, shovel, or pickaxe to find the eggs, they’re not really hidden. It’s an Easter egg hunt, not an Easter egg pick-them-up-off-the-open-ground.

Actually, that’s exactly what the adult Easter egg hunt was supposed to be. The only added factor was violence. We moved from the youth egg search in the backyard to the adult version out front. The grass was still soaking wet from hours of rain earlier in the day. I wasn’t the only one not dressed appropriately for the elements. Mitchell was wearing sandals with socks. He refused to change. We must be getting old. In his younger days, he would have insisted on cleats for better grip during full-body tackles. We continued the trend when we agreed to rules that would force us to slow down. We had to carry the eggs on spoons, but small plastic ones that could barely support an egg. There was no way to run without it falling off. That was ideal. The slower we went, the better. The last thing I wanted this competition to come down to was cardio. It also minimized the likelihood of attack. It would take so much focus to take care of our own eggs that it would be difficult to worry about anyone else’s. As much as I pretend to be tough when it comes to the Easter egg hunt, I’ve finally realized it’s not worth hurting for weeks because I went all-out to get a few dollars. I have to pay my own medical bills.

My siblings had similar thoughts. My sister Ella broke her foot before she even got there doing the incredible athletic feat of chasing her kid down a hill. It was a small fracture that wasn’t in a place that could be immobilized in a cast. She tried a boot, but that made things worse. Instead, she opted to limp around. That was the level of competition I wanted. Unfortunately, we let the little kids from the youth egg hunt stand in for her. They could only go one at a time, but they could tag in like at a wrestling match. They would be low to the ground and have fresh legs the whole time, which was a huge advantage. If I really wanted to win, I should have also hurt myself in advance so I could use child labor.

We gathered in a line along the flower bed. My mom gave the word. We took off. We slowly shuffled back and forth between the eggs and our bags, which, by rule, had to stay at the starting line. Even with my full focus, I had trouble keeping the eggs on the spoon. I might have cheated once or twice and used my thumb. The adult Easter egg hunt has yet to incorporate video review. Mitchell, who usually takes great pride in attacking me, focused on his eggs and his wet socks. The children weren’t so neutral. I was assailed by my own girls, who swooped in to steal my eggs multiple times. I tried to stop them by reminding them that I paid all of their bills. They didn’t care. This wasn’t for money. It was for spite. Meanwhile, the nephew I’d stumped with the egg in the outdoor outlet cover got his revenge. He was fast and low to the ground. I never stood a chance. In the future, I should pick on enemies my own size. They’re slow like me.

Photo by AJ on Unsplash

After a few minutes, all of the eggs had been collected. When I picked up my bag, I was pleasantly surprised. It was heavy. Then I remembered that I put a paver in the bottom so it didn’t blow away in the wind. When I took that out, I realized I hadn’t gotten much of anything. I came away with a mere eighteen dollars. Worse, Lola had been even more unmotivated than the rest of us. She sat out with my sister, but without the excuse of breaking her leg. Our earnings as a couple were cut in half from the start. My kids did well, but they refused to share. The winner was Ella, whose rotating army of children collected an incredible (and possibly all-time record) of thirty-five dollars. Betsy got thirty-two dollars entirely on her own. She’s motivated to earn some money. She’ll need a lot more adult Easter egg hunts to pay for college. Mae only collected twenty-one dollars, but she thwarted me from getting several eggs. She considered that a win. Lucy got fifteen dollars. Nobody knows about Waffle. She didn’t tell us so there was no chance she’d have to turn it over or pay taxes. The government will never get a penny from her.

We had almost called off Easter. When we held it, we did things very differently than in other years, yet it turned out to be traditional after all. Our true tradition isn’t doing things in one particular way, but causing chaos for the entire day. That part can never be canceled.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James