And if so how?

As a celebratory rite of Spring passage ? Or as a spiritual rebirth with the focus on Christ being risen ?

When as a child for my siblings and I it was really a rite of Springtime, and of course with the message of the risen son of God via the LDS doctrine.

I still love Easter time because of the reawakening of life as the buds start to reappear on the trees and shrubs. Flowers begin to bloom again, and it marks the end of a long winter in the northern climates.

Little bunnies and colorful Easter eggs. Children wondering with excitement what Easter Bunny will bring them this year. Little surprises filled with happy times.

Childhood of my youth really was a simpler time to be young IMHO. My children loved Easter also, perhaps for the same traditions I grew up with.

As an ex-Mo I still find joy in Easter time. Even as a Jewish woman it still brings me joy with the message of the Messiah, a re-awakening, re-birth, as the circle of life begins anew.

I feel the same way at shul as I watch the little children playing and their festivities. We are more alike than we are different regardless of what religion we believe, or choose not to believe. Joy is found within, like inner peace.

Something I didn't find much as a Mormon which led me to searching, which in turn led me to find my way out of that labyrinth. However, it was the special occasions such as Easter and Christmas as a Mormon lass that I felt joy and happiness the most. When the message wasn't about TSCC, but about the agape love of the NT and OT.

Once I started comparing doctrine to scripture, when I could face them squarely against the other was when the shelf began to crack, and then a little more at a time... until the pieces started fitting together like a puzzle and it all made sense that TSCC is/was and will always be what it's been up to now. Which is a cult designed to deceive as it steals the identities of its members to conform to its program.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2019 06:10PM by Amyjo.

Easter was never a big thing in our home. I enjoyed dying easter eggs and the easter egg hunts as a kid. My mom made it fun. We did a bit of that when we had young kids.

As an empty nester we really don't get into holidays as much. Christmas and the 4th of July are still big family get togethers.

Never was so much into the boo hoo! tear jerking Jesus died for me thing. Easter was always about colored eggs, candy and a bunny for me.

My mom made a big to do over coloring eggs. She had a recipe for egg dye using vinegar that made a tie dye effect, which was really fun to do when we were children. We'd eat boiled eggs for days and weeks it seemed. :)

Being an empty nester myself I don't get as excited about Easter.

But I still enjoy Spring.

I took a care package to my favorite local nuns last week for Spring and Easter. They really live on vows of poverty. Imagine five nuns living on one nun's pension of only $800 a month. That's it. They own their house, but the $800 is what they have to live on. Divide that by five elderly ladies and it isn't much.

When she dies, I don't know what the other nuns are going to do.

I love her like a sister. She's a very special lady. A Holocaust survivor. We met ten years ago when she needed help for her brother who needed assistance in getting his money back from a green card scammer in New York City. And we've been friends since. Her brother has died since. She's up in years. When I saw her last week she almost didn't recognize me even though we last saw each other in February. Dang old age anyway. When I look at her there is something about her eyes that is like looking into the soul of a saint.

We write about some of the TSCC apostles eyes here. When I look into this sister's she really is a saint. She looks like an angel. Funny how one person can touch our lives for good just by crossing paths.

That was nice of you to think of the sisters. Was she in a concentration camp from helping or hiding Jews? That’s sad. I’m glad she survived. Do you know which camp/s she was at?

When I say "survivor" I don't mean she was in a camp herself. She watched trainloads of Jews being deported from her hometown of Budapest, Hungary. She was nine years old then. She wouldn't become a nun for a few more years, but she had to survive the war first.

Then, after the Communists took over Hungary, she was forced to study Mechanical Engineering because they didn't want her teaching their children about God (her being a nun by then,) it would impose a danger to their godless culture by giving the children a conflicting belief system over the government party.

So, she didn't get to be a practicing nun or teacher before she was able to come to America I believe under Political Asylum sometime in the 1950's or thereabouts.. When her convent was able to move here and set up chapters in this country. One of her sisters was a Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism from Romania. She watched her family get murdered in the camps. As a Catholic nun in Communist Romania she spent ten years in prison before getting to come to America under Political Asylum.

Another founding nun sacrificed her life during the Holocaust to save other nuns when they were caught by the Nazis as resistance fighters, helping to hide Jewish people from the Nazis. She was executed along a river bank with other prisoners, after being stripped bare and naked. She did the sign of the cross as her last "words" before she died. She voluntarily gave her life for her fellow sisters. My friend was just a child during that time. She's old now.

It dawned on me earlier today that though my "angel" nun and I met around ten years ago or so, it was only recently that I learned she was trained as a mechanical engineer in Hungary following the Holocaust.

That is the same field my con artist of an uncle majored in at Berkeley.

When God closed one window on my life, he opened another by crossing my paths with this wonderful "engineer" / nun / earth angel. I say that because when my uncle was caught on video committing split deposit theft where I live in upstate New York, my children and I were the only ones to be able to identify him from Crimestoppers.

I was given a warning dream in the weeks and months before he committed his bank heist here to protect my children from him. I was given a clue in the dream (it wasn't clear who it was,) that someone intended to do my children harm. Later when my aunt and uncle came to visit, the clue was revealed upon their visit that the person in the dream was indeed my uncle. Six months later he came back to commit the bank heist, and that was when we learned he is a con artist.

Nonetheless, God took away, and then brought someone back into my life to enrich it after I felt forced to cut off all ties with my uncle for being a grifter. He used my children to commit his bank heist ie, to scout our area in the months leading up to the crime. It was the only time he may have been identified, according to police. But that he'd been doing it for a very long time. He was skilled in the art of the con. A master manipulator.

How apropos that a mechanical engineer/nun who came through the Holocaust befriended following that horrendous awful event with my aunt and uncle where my children and I live? I helped her when she needed intervention with her brother in Hungary. That is how we met. And yet she has helped me so much more with my faith in humanity to be restored even a little. She stepped up to the plate without even knowing she was. :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2019 09:40PM by Amyjo.

For those who believe in the resurrection of Jesus, I assume that Easter is very meaningful.

For me, it’s just another Sunday. Even as a kid, it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t even in the same league as Christmas, and also well below Halloween and Independence Day.

My siblings and I would eat ourselves sick silly on chocolate & jelly beans on Easter morning, and then eat an orange and an egg for breakfast lol.

Church was just an interruption to get home to do it all over again lololol.

It was fun to dress up though in Easter Sunday clothes.

I loved dressing my children for Easter and such. They were some of the best dressed kids in school and church. Maybe because I grew up dirt poor in Idaho. I vowed my children would have nice clothes. So they did. They aren't as clothing conscious as I was or am. Maybe it skips generations in families?

A great great grandpa (Mormon convert,) from Wales, was a tailor who immigrated to Ogden, Utah. My Jewish great grandpa owned a men's shirt factory in Omaha, Nebraska. They had excellent taste in clothing. There are pockets of clothing geeks in my family.

;o)

After my family all went inactive or left Catholicism, we celebrated the pagan aspects of Easter -- eggs, the bunny, flowers, a nice spring meal of lamb, asparagus, and new potatoes. My niece and nephew went on Easter egg hunts as children. We've fallen away from it in recent years, but with a new little child in the family, it may cause a revival. I still decorate for Easter.

I think it's nice to celebrate Spring, the time of rebirth. Even the story of Christ is a story of rebirth. These celebrations are as old as humankind.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2019 06:46PM by summer.

I've added a small decoration to my livingroom or two, just because. Am also sending one of my children some Easter surprises because it is part of a traditional care package I send each year.

Still need to get it in the mail. Been getting over a bug now that I've had for three weeks today. Running out of time here. Easter is just around the corner !

Watching little children's joy and happiness adds to ours for such occasions. Having a new little one in your family is something to celebrate !

I celebrate See's chocolate easter candy!

Okay, that is something to celebrate !

Yum yum. :)

I don't celebrate Easter, but I do celebrate Ostara (Spring Equinox).

That sounds celebratory to me.

Even similar sounding. :)

Rolls eyes.

Did that gust of wind over your head mess up your hair?

Actually, you're right. It is where many of the Easter traditions came from. Google Eostre or Ostara. Goddess of Spring.

Thanks Heidi.

You're a mensch! :)

I celebrate the "resurrection" of life in general - dead-looking trees fuzzing out in pale new greenery, flowers beginning to poke through the soil, stuff like that. Winter seemed absolutely endless this last time, so I am loving the mild weather and the signs of new life everywhere.

It's re-birth, but has nothing to do with religion.

Yes, but my TBM sister pretty much ignores it since her kids are grown. My mother was the same. Other than going to church where there was a lame Easter program sometimes, it was pretty much about candy and bunnies.We had a special dinner and dyed eggs, but all but the dinner and church ended when we got too old for the bunny.Easter is not a big deal in the church in my experience



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/11/2019 07:10PM by bona dea.

It seemed to become less important as I got older in TSCC.

As a child TSCC would often hold a concert each Easter like Handel's Messiah or something comparable.

I don't hear them doing that as much anymore, but then I've been out of touch w/any of its activities so maybe they do.

Why would we not celebrate Easter as an exmo?

Because as an Athiest I don't buy into what I see as superstitious nonsense about some magic guy defying the laws of nature in some immoral scapegoating " dying for others sins " individuals are responsible for the harm they do to others and that should not be " forgiven " It's too easy of an out to avoid responsibility . That is why.

In addition Peeps are the worst sweets ever concocted

Peeps give me the greatest sugar rush of anything out there, but since I am married to a diabetic, I don't dare buy anything sweet. It would be mean.

I LOVE Peeps, but they have to be dried out some. A day without the wrapper on is about right. I have diabetes and I shouldn't be eating them, but I've been doing a lot of testing and injections. (I have a great new doctor that can get me to do anything because she is so nice. I never would have done testing throughout the day and several injections a day until she came along.) But I need to STOP. Can't wait until they are not in the stores any longer. I haven't eaten Peeps in quite a while. My kids HATE them.

Jimbo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Because as an Athiest I don't buy into what I see
> as superstitious nonsense about some magic guy
> defying the laws of nature in some immoral
> scapegoating " dying for others sins " individuals
> are responsible for the harm they do to others and
> that should not be " forgiven " It's too easy of
> an out to avoid responsibility . That is why.


I'm an Athiest also... however I never equated celebrating
Easter as a strictly "mormon church" event. That is why I see no problem with easter, it doesn't mean I believe in Jesus or god.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2019 10:58PM by saucie.

Well it is a Christian holiday . It can be the secular bunny eggs ham Yucky Peeps etc . I'm not much of a holiday person. I Absolutly hate and I do mean hate x mas . The only holiday I really celebrate is July 4th because it means hot weather beer Barbeque baseball and these are a few of my favorite things. only thing I like about Easter is those little Cadbury eggs

I don't go to the Mormon church anymore, but they didn't do much when I was a kid and from what I have seen and heard, they still dont. Same for Christmas. The local Catholic cathedral has a lot of Mormons attend for both. It seems some Mormons feel the lack. Perhaps the GAs ought to consider that. It would help in their quest to be seen as Christian too

I have young children, so it is all about egg hunts and the Easter bunny for us. I keep religion out of it. For us it's a nice family day to have brunch and go mini-golfing. It's when we go over to my TBM parent's house for dinner (if and when we do) that there's pressure and expectations and religion in the air. Ick...we haven't made our plans yet, but I'm thinking it would be nice to skip visiting all the relatives this year and just do our own thing as a family.

No.

Celebrating Easter was fun as a kid because of how my grandparents celebrated it.

When I was mo, I was bothered by the lack of celebration other than a nice meal (if it didnt fall on gc weekend).

Yes, I like celebrating Easter.

I didn't have a clue what Easter was about other than Easter baskets and baby chicks. My mom would get the baby chicks and we would actually let them grow up and use their eggs. They were both farmer's children after all and we had a farm that we didn't live on.

My mother always made us Easter dresses. The boys didn't get anything clothing wise.

I still give my kids Easter baskets. They are 33. I will do one for my new son-in-law, too. I give then gifts, too. Not as many as Christmas. Not nearly. Just a few. Now that they are adults, I usually would give them money, but I already bought my son some things he wanted and he has them and I know what to get my daughter and her husband. Christmas was not what I usually do because of my lack of employment until a few weeks before Christmas. I had to give them what I had purchased over the year. So I am making sure I do something nice for them now.

My parents didn't teach about the resurrection, etc. We didn't have church teachings in our home. We went to church. I didn't pick up on the message of Easter until I was much older.

Consider yourself lucky that you weren't subjected to the weekly indoctrination session otherwise known as family home evening. I can still remember the flannel board stories and my parents trying to wrangle 7 little kids into reverence. LOL

to my post. I don't always get them in the correct place.

FHE for our house was once about every 6 months when my mother would decide that she needed to do more to be a good mormon. She'd complain to my dad about him not supporting her efforts with church. He'd yell for all of us to come to the front room and I would have to play the piano (we didn't sing) and someone would read out of the FHE manual. All of us sitting there with sullen faces. My dad would often tease us for how happy we were about FHE. And then MONTHS would pass and no FHE. Bring the issue up with any one of my siblings and they'll tell you the same story.

I agree with saucie. I like to have something to celebrate. We'll have dinner so my disabled brothers will have somewhere to go. I LOVE Christmas, but mostly because I LOVE getting other people gifts. I look all year for bargains so that I can give everyone in my family several gifts, especially my 2 disabled brothers, and then I have many older women (older than I am) who I give gifts to every year. I love doing it.

NOTHING like Idle Isle chocolate(s). I couldn't get my kids some at Christmas, so I will make sure they get a larger box for Easter. My daughter said as a child she thought that you could only get Idle Isle candy on holidays and was so excited to find out you can buy it year round.

My b-day is in April and so I've always felt a connection with Easter. To me it has meant more along the lines of spring, growth, & new beginnings. Always loved baby animals, spring flowers, bunnies, chicks, & egg hunts. :D

My mom used to make us a scavenger hunt with several clues to locate our Easter basket. The older we got the harder the clues were & we always had a blast no matter our age! Us older kids would hide eggs for the younger ones over & over again. We'd get tired of it but watching their excitement made it all worth it. We'd hide them so many times we'd forget where they all were. We lost an egg or two only to find it years later moving furniture or something.. lol

Easter has been a reflective time since I've left the church. It was right before Easter when I had my aha moment that started me on my journey out.

mahana Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My b-day is in April and so I've always felt a
> connection with Easter. To me it has meant more
> along the lines of spring, growth, & new
> beginnings. Always loved baby animals, spring
> flowers, bunnies, chicks, & egg hunts. :D

You sound like a Spring baby. :)
>
> My mom used to make us a scavenger hunt with
> several clues to locate our Easter basket. The
> older we got the harder the clues were & we always
> had a blast no matter our age! Us older kids would
> hide eggs for the younger ones over & over again.
> We'd get tired of it but watching their excitement
> made it all worth it. We'd hide them so many times
> we'd forget where they all were. We lost an egg or
> two only to find it years later moving furniture
> or something.. lol

Your mom knew how to make a fun event educational and challenging too for her children. Something for the whole family no matter what age. :)

>
> Easter has been a reflective time since I've left
> the church. It was right before Easter when I had
> my aha moment that started me on my journey out.

When I left the Mormon church in my 30's was on an Easter Sunday. I knew it was a permanent departure at the time and it was for a few years. I only returned for a brief stint after my parents deaths in 2000, out of nostalgia for my childhood and a longing for my family lost. But yeah, it was on Easter Sunday, 1994, that I walked away knowing it was a definite move onward and upward from the hellhole of Mormonism that wasn't what it claimed to be.

As I handed my tithing payment that day over to the ward clerk for what would be the last time, he was a seedy guy whose wife was addicted to narcotics. He worked as an accountant in NYC, so TSCC trusted him with taking tithes. While his SAH wife would stay stoned all day when he went to work, instead of taking care of their young children. The Mormons defended them when Child Protective Services took the children out of the home because her own mother had turned her into CPS for neglect and abuse of her children. Not the Mormons.

She was a sorry excuse for a mom I know because she watched my children for a time. She came highly recommended by the people from church as a wonderful wife and mom. Every single time my children went to their house they would come home injured or something bad happen. I finally stopped taking them because they weren't safe there. That was before CPS stepped in taking her children out of the home. Still, the Mormons defended them while her own Catholic parents knew of her daughter's addiction and abuse of her own children.

The husband was a very sleazy, seedy guy as well. On that last Easter Sunday when handing over my tithing, I knew instantly it was not going to tithing central. I watched as he felt the envelope and could tell I had put cash inside it instead of a check. I could see by the glint in his eye he was going to steal that money.

Yet I knew I was leaving there and wasn't coming back. Not because of him, but because my faith in that religion was broken.

Sure enough, at year's end, there was no receipt from TSCC showing what I had paid for that year, nothing to indicate I had given it any money including the $160 I had given in tithing on that last Easter Sunday I was there. That man was a heathen.

Since then, TSCC has eliminated "middle men" from receiving tithing monies at church. Now they can only be given to a bishop or bishopric. Not to a ward clerk. He was a ward clerk. I wonder if it was because of him that the rules were changed? I sure hope so. He belonged behind bars.

Finally after my children and I relocated to another part of New York, one of my children who was in middle school by then, broke down after we'd moved and told me that their children would molest my child at knife point while their mother was watching my children. This had occurred some years earlier. The reason my child hadn't told me before was they had threatened with a knife if that happened something worse would happen.

I was so livid I was ready to kill at that moment. I did call the police where they lived. But because it had happened years earlier there wasn't anything they could do because of statutory laws. Add that as soon as that effing family got their children back from CPS, they fled (with the Mormons help,) to New Jersey to escape the attention of New York Child Protective Services.

Mormonism sucks. They were another reason we left and didn't look back.

OMG, that guy sound like a real piece of work along with his whole family. I'm so sorry your kids were harmed by his. :(

It's cool we have a similar connection with Easter & leaving the church!

When my kids were little I was pretty disgusted with the lack of anything meaningful ever being taught at church about Easter. I started thinking about ideas to teach my kids about it that would be fun and memorable. I ended up coming up with an idea to get some caterpillars for them to hatch into butterflies and let go. I was planning to use it as an object lesson about repentance.

So I started searching online to buy the caterpillars & got side tracked reading about all sorts of butterflies. I ended up running across a description for one that wouldn't have meant a thing to anyone else but for me at the time, it hit like a ton of bricks. It talked about a Ulysses butterfly that had wings that looked like bark on the outside but a bright iridescent blue on the inside. So it kept it's winged closed to try & blend in with its surroundings but every time it flew it it's colors would show & it took the chance of being seen and eaten.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table and just sobbing my eyes out. For the first time ever I allowed myself to take a step back and acknowledge how I really felt in the church. I realized that I had given up so much of my self to conform & blend in and every time I did show a little bit of who I really was I was taking a huge chance of being criticized or condemned. I wasn't necessarily hiding big things, but so many small things that I had been raised to believe were absolute evil by my over the top fanatical TBM family. It's was definitely a weird way to have a wake up call but from that point on I had changed and was done trying to make myself fit their mold.

That's a pretty cool visualization you had about the butterfly, Ulysses.

I've loved the scripture about being able to see through a glass darkly for now. And that someday we'll be able to see through the glass clearly. It has reminded me of the caterpillar on its way to becoming a butterfly. The butterfly has thousands of eyes to see with from all angles.

As children growing up in TSCC we did see through the glass "darkly" sometimes for a long while. It took me a long time before I was able to outgrow the mindset of Mormonism and break free from that mold of conformity to being myself more fully.

In high school and as a teenager I was rebellious. Went inactive then came back to church activity, before leaving again as an adult. We weren't taught to question TSCC. Anything but that. Fear trumped reason.

Mormonism is mind numbing. It paralyzes the soul to inertia. When I left for the last time was the day a Relief Society president gave the lesson that day in RS. She started the class by addressing the women asking, "Does anyone here ever have any doubts or questions about Mormonism? I know I do." (She was studying to become a brain surgeon at the time as a mid-life career change.)

There was a hushed silence in the room for a very long pause. No one said a thing. There was not a single reply. Finally after the dreaded silence, she said "Well, neither do I." She resumed the lesson as though the initial question had never been posed at all! I was astonished.

When I left TSCC that day I realized I too was as fearful as those other women to respond out of fear of being singled out as a questioning Mormon. Even though I questioned too, like the RS president did.

That was my last time at an actual meeting (it was years after that 1994 Easter mtg.) My kids & me returned momentarily only to leave again following my parents death. After that last Sunday with her teaching that lesson, and realizing how mind numbing everything was/is about TSCC, I hit the road and have only been back for family funerals since.

then I'm thinking that my answer will be "YES! I DO CELEBRATE EASTER!"

Thanks Wally Prince,

For getting me back on track.

I still need to get my Easter care basket off to one of my grown children before Easter has come and gone.

And I have some high quality chocolate eggs to go in there.

Although said child did mention not to send too much because I have a tendency to go overboard. When I start out filling a little care box, it grows into a bigger care box. By the time it is ready to ship it often morphs into two care boxes.

Easter is not Christmas, must keep repeating. Still it is springtime and who doesn't like chocolate?! I did manage to cut back though. This time.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2019 08:12AM by Amyjo.

We celebrate it as the Day of Spiral Cut Ham and Deviled Eggs.

Okay, that sounds like a winner too.

It's getting closer to lunchtime here on the East Coast. Tick tock. What to have, what to have? All this talk of food is making me hungry.

;o)

As we have off on Good Friday, we always take advantage of the long weekend and visit my parents.

Luckee. To have parents to visit, I mean. And a long weekend!

:o)

Amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Luckee. To have parents to visit, I mean. And a
> long weekend!
>
> :o)


Agreed. :)

Missing loved ones who are no longer here during holidays.

I love it and celebrate it too.

It was always a big deal with my wife and especially after we became grandparents. I won't be with my grandkids this Easter so nothing planned.

Heck yeah! Easter egg hunt, easter egg decorating, and enjoying the coming of green and more temperate weather.

Well worth celebrating.

Easter was a big deal with my never-attend-church parents. I used to visit them most Easters.

When I became a Mormon, I was surprised that Easter wasn’t that big of a deal. April General Conference was a much bigger deal, especially if Easter fell on it.

As a Christian—it’s now my central holiday. The associated pagan aspects—eggs, bunnies, fertility, new clothes, etc are fun, but not what Easter season is about for me.

For my atheist friends here, if you’re going to eat chocolate, for heaven-sake, make it good chocolate and go for the Easter Bunny’s ears—they taste best! Hugs for all, the Easter Bunny’s Boner.

PS a sure sign of Easter is Dave the Atheist’s annual joke, look for it!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2019 12:09PM by BYU Boner.

Partially.

there are some traditions the kids look forward to like decorating cookies. i dont do any crosses or such cookie shapes. ill do eggs and rabbits and kites and flower shapes. i still buy some chocolate that we all enjoy.

but no songs or religious trappings or attendance or such discussions.

Nope. And don’t like “peeps” :)

The mention of See's chocolates reminds me of the time I took some back to England as a gift for my mother. When it was time to return to the US my mother's carer, a plain speaking Irish lady, presented me with a box of English chocolates with the words: "Tis a little something to enjoy when you get home since it is plain from the chocolates you brought your mother that it is hard to find good chocolates in America." Each toi their own taste, I guess.

Haha.

Guess so. See's is a Salt Lake specialty. :)

Since learning I'm nearly 40% Swiss (per revised DNA piechart,) I've decided there's a reason why I love Lindt's truffles so much. ;)

(Now I have one more reason to visit if ever I get to! We do have a Lindt outlet near my home but it isn't quite the same as visiting Switzerland.)

Never celebrated it until I was an ex-mo. As a kid I thought Easter and GC were related or the same thing. I didn’t know what Easter was about until years later.

That being said, my family does celebrate Easter. My husband came from a very religious family. DH and kids go to his church regularly - and they enjoy the Easter activities there every year. After church they will go eat with my brother and his family.
I work at our community food bank, and will help prepare and serve the noon meal to those who come to eat on Easter - not because I am religious, but because it is the right thing to help others.

Did I mention that I eat my fair share of Peeps, chocolate bunnies, and jelly beans?

My family growing up only observed it when we were kids, hiding eggs and receiving chocolate and stuffed bunnies. After we were 8-10, we didn’t celebrate it anymore

I confess my children believed in Easter Bunny and Santa Clause until I went with my oldest at Christmastime by middle school shopping for the younger, to explain the myth. My children were the last holdouts in their class/es that believed and I knew that I just couldn't bear the thought of their beginning junior high being the only kid/s who still believed. So I had to break the news. It was really hard because I wasn't prepared for the reaction.

The shock. The horror!

I was in fourth grade when I figured it out by spying on my parents waiting up one Christmas night. I'd crack my bedroom door open when they thought I was sleeping. They'd keep closing it as they puttered around doing the last minute rituals. I'd tiptoe back to open it again, then scurry back to bed pretending to sleep with two eyes half open. Until they started bringing presents out of the hiding places to the livingroom to put under the tree. By association I made the connection to EB, and alas the Tooth Fairy. My children weren't as skeptical as I had been, bless their dear sweet hearts. I didn't know how to break it except for sitting down with the oldest and explaining it so in turn the oldest could then help break the news to the younger, just not yet. It seemed easier to deal with one at a time, psychologically speaking. Heck, maybe not, in hindsight. My children knew about the birds and the bees before they did Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and Easter Bunny. They learned that from school. Just not the other, surprisingly.

Same here , Amy! I was always a light sleeper, even as a kid. I was woken up by banging noises and I caught my parents coming out of their bed room with presents. I heard my mom go” Sh, don’t wake up the girls” I opened the door of my room to peek and they saw me and let me help them move presents ,if I didn’t say anything to my sisters. It was fun. Afterwards we had hot chocolate, before I had to go back to bed

Bunnies made of white chocolate are the best! Yum.

White chocolate is good, but milk chocolate is better. Peeps are good and so are jelly beans. Missing Easter is not for me. Lol