To say that Easter will be a different kind of celebration this year is an understatement. With a statewide stay-at-home order, much of the usual joy of Easter – getting dressed up in new clothes, placing flowers on a cross at church and searching for candy-filled eggs – won’t happen this year.
But you can still dye eggs at home, the Easter Bunny will still visit and you can “hunt” for eggs, too, if you’re creative about it.
In Huntsville, Rocket City Mom, a hyperlocal online parenting resource for north Alabama, has organized The Great Huntsville Easter Egg Hunt, going on now. Here’s how it works: Cut an egg out of paper or poster board, have your children decorate it, then mount it in your window or on your front door. As your neighbors walk by with their kids, they can keep track of how many eggs they find along the way.
The hunt was originally planned as a walking, biking and/or driving activity, but the recent stay-at-home order changed things slightly. Now event organizers are encouraging people to limit their search to their own neighborhoods.
Stephenie Walker, the managing editor of Rocket City Mom, came up with the idea when she noticed others were bringing back their Halloween and Christmas decorations. “I was thinking how sad and disappointing, especially for little kids, and how hard it would be not to celebrate Easter the way we normally do,” she said.
She has created an egg hunt map that includes homes with decorated eggs to be found. On the first official day of the hunt, more than 300 locations were on the map.
Parents can print out a template for cutting out eggs to decorate as well as an egg tracker map to bring along on the hunt so that kids can color it in as they spy eggs. The tracker doubles as a counting activity but also can be used as a reward – children can receive a piece of candy for every egg they find, or they can leave the tracker for the Easter Bunny to find.
“It’s something to take our minds off things for a little while, to bring a little normalcy,” Walker said.
That’s what we all need right now, even more than candy.
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This story originally appeared on AL.com.
