It’s Time to Lie … Again

For those of you who have been with the Patch since the beginning, you might recall a column I wrote about “lying about Santa.”

It never occurred to me until I had my own children that the whole concept of Santa sliding down the chimney and the Easter bunny hopping through the front door were essentially just lies told to our children. I mean, really, they are.

Call it tradition; call it bribery. Either way we are all still telling our kids that, this Easter Sunday, an eight-foot-tall rabbit is going to make his way to their house bearing baskets full of tacky toys and teeth-rotting treats. I’m still having some trouble with this.

I have no one but myself to blame.

Silly me. I started a tradition of placing a colorful trail of penny-filled plastic eggs from their bedrooms, down the hall, down the stairs, through the kitchen, up the stairs and into the family room ultimately ending at their Easter surprises -- the ultimate “bunny” trail.

This practice began almost a decade ago, and now I’m realizing my mistake. It’s just adding to the lie and the expectation on Easter dawn.

Certainly my ‘almost’ nine-year-old son, who happens to be very science-minded, would have come to the logical realization that there’s just no feasible way a ginormous white rabbit could know enough, nor have the dexterity, to deliver treat-filled baskets to every boy and girl in the country, as well as other Christians throughout the world.

By now he should have come to the conclusion that an animal doesn’t actually lay plastic eggs, nor can it possibly hop thousands of miles in one given night.

Surely he knows.

We’ve attended several “breakfasts with the Easter bunny.” We’ve seen Easter bunnies parading around at park hunts and sitting in oversized chairs at the malls. He knows they’re all different, some even scary. He even commented how the one "definitely wasn’t real" because it had a large (and clearly artificial) plastic nose.

After all of this evidence of the truth, one would think he could figure it out.

And herein lies my dilemma.

Is this the year where we say, “Hey bud, you know we love you and want you to be the happiest boy on the block, but do you REALLY think the Easter bunny comes to our house on Easter morning or are you just going with the flow?” Seriously … he HAS to know by now.

My husband, the realist in all things, says we should just tell him. He, too, is a science guy and is having a tough time understanding where the logical disconnect is occurring for our son.

“This is getting ridiculous,” he says. “Someone’s GOT to tell him!”

Alas, another holiday, another moral conflict. I know, I know … everyone tells me he’ll figure it out sooner or later. I’m just at the point where I wonder if he HAS figured it out and we’re the ones getting the wool pulled over our eyes.

Perhaps someday he’ll let the cat out of the bag and fill us in on all of his secrets  -- tales of how he had it all figured out when he was in first grade, and how he knew it would break our hearts if he admitted he knew the truth.

If that’s the case, I think I’ll love him even more for indulging us all these years.

“Hoppy” Easter everyone!