My World: The Easter egg hunt

When I was a child, Easter was up there with Christmas and birthdays in terms of the excitement factor that filled my small body the night before the main event.

It could just have been how creative my parents were that gave me this feeling, maybe me and my brother were lucky, but the magic seems to have worn off for children these days.

See, my mum and dad used to set up an Easter egg hunt for us around the house.

Doesn’t sound like much does it? But it sure was exciting and ranks as one of my favourite childhood memories.

We would wake up on Easter morning and a trail of Cream Eggs would lead us from our bedroom doors to the top of the stairs, when the hunt would begin.

On the tops of cupboards, tucked in drawers, hidden under the settee, they were everywhere.

The collection of chocolate treats, from family members such as my grandparents and aunties and uncles, would prove hard to find for two small kids.

But the joy was in the hunt, not in the reward. It was genuinely something I looked forward to for weeks in advance.

Also, the tales my dad used to tell me will live with me for the rest of my life.

For example, did you know that the Easter Bunny actually lives under a water tower just outside Wortley?

I know this because my dad used to tell me when I was young, as we would pass on the way to my grandma’s house.

Of course, this isn’t strictly true, but the whole world created by my parents that culminated in the hunt made Easter so exciting.

Like I said before, whether me and my brother were just lucky in this respect, or whether it is normal for kids to be rooting through kitchen cupboards on Easter morning, I’m not too sure.

For something with a relatively small financial worth, in comparison to the likes of Christmas, the anticipation when I went to bed on Saturday night was electric.

But it all changed for me one year – when I was about 10 or 11, as I asked my mum for the money equivalent instead of the chocolate.

She proceeded to give me £2.50 and the magic was gone, because as I said, the fun was in the hunt and not in the reward.

What the hunt did succeed in doing though was turning a few pieces of chocolate into the most amazing thing in the world, giving us memories that will live forever, and hopefully one or two stories that I can pass on to my little ones some day too.

What are your memories of Easter as a child? Let me know by tweeting @rotherhamtiser