In search of Easter, and eggs

TLOML and I took Lady P and her cousins to the Hermosa Beach Easter Egg hunt this weekend. It was organized by Hope Chapel, a big church up on the hill, and was heavily advertised - including the fact that they were distributing 16,000 eggs. I found this unlikely, but should not have doubted. There were indeed many, many eggs.

The 0-2 year olds' section, moments before the hunt began

But it wasn't so much a hunt as a grab - especially for the youngest children, who had the eggs all laid out in front of them.

The 3-5 year olds, racing to grab as many eggs as possible

Meanwhile Lady P skips obliviously past dozens of eggs

We didn't cheer Lady P on quite as vociferously as some of the more focused parents. She was satisfied pretty quickly with her haul of five eggs, at which point we extracted ourselves to watch the frenzy that was the big kids' section. An announcement was made that there were some golden eggs with special prizes out there, and the hunt intensified.

A corner of the 6-9 year olds' section, with the hunt in full, aggressive swing

Frankly the whole thing was a bit ungodly. For a start, it was held on Saturday, resulting in children eating Easter eggs during Lent. Admittedly, Lady P is far from devout and she didn't actually give anything up for Lent. Still, it seemed wrong to me. It's just not how I was raised.

And there were children there with dozens of eggs. Way more than anyone could want or need. And parents strategising to grab as many eggs as possible, and rifling through them to find the golden ones, discarding the rest. Weird and as TLOML put it, a bit grotesque.

And the colouring in pictures that were provided in the play area weren't even of Jesus. In fact even though the whole thing was organised by a church there wasn't a mention of Jesus - except in the leaflets they gave you when you left. Which I suppose is a subtle way to market but seems a bit sneaky, almost cowardly, to me.

Like Lady P, I'm not exactly devout. But if she's going to enjoy Easter eggs she should at least know what Easter is all about.

So the next day - actual Easter Day - we hosted a rather more sedate egg hunt in the Sugar Cube's backyard, and took Lady P to church to sing Easter hymns. The balance was reset and the conserverative middle class feathers I didn't know I had were smoothed.

I think next year we might just stick to a family-only, organic-biscuits-in-every-egg, pre-church Easter Sunday egg hunt. I just don't think I'm American enough, yet, to get on board with the Hermosa egg hunt frenzy.