Cruising FB today and came across chocolate Easter rabbit ears from the Vermont Store. Clever. I mean really, aren’t those the best part of a chocolate bunny?

All ears from the Vermont Store this Easter.

My mom apparently thought so. When she passed a few years ago, we came across not one, but two earless chocolate bunnies stashed away in curious places, clearly forgotten. Mom would have liked being able to just buy the ears, I think. Brought back some memories.

When we were little – okay, I’ll hedge that and say when I was little, not sure what mom did for my sisters who are five and ten years older than me respectively – but as Easter neared I would go out in the yard and surprise! There would be a little plastic nest full of jelly beans and maybe a chocolate marshmallow bunny. Next day there might be one in the corner of a room. It was random, the location, the contents, the timing. But such a sweet surprise to find gifts the Easter bunny had left.

Easter Day was a candy orgy. Each of us had a designated basket which “the Easter Bunny” would fill with colorful Easter grass, jelly beans, marshmallow bunnies, bright foil wrapped chocolate and marshmallow eggs, and a few big treats – maybe a big bunny, maybe the coveted Reese’s peanut butter eggs, and my FAVORITE – PEEPS. Pink peeps are still the best. Prefer them slightly stale. Yum.

Anyway, these baskets were huge, extravagant and heavy, at least to me as a little kid. These weren’t pre-made, store-bought baskets either: mom bought and assembled the contents of each one for us. They were awesome.

Didn’t take long for my Peeps to look like this.\

“Mysteriously” as time went by, the black jelly beans would disappear – mom’s favorite – soon followed by the yucky white spice ones – another of her weaknesses.

We’d also dye eggs at Easter, mom making the bowls of dye and us doing our best to make the eggs pretty. Jan was the artist; my eggs were more autistic than artistic. I really don’t remember if Carol and Dad helped with the egg coloring or not, but it was fun. I particularly remember Jan drawing on eggs in crayon then dyeing them – of course the stain didn’t stick to where the wax was, those were cool. And the swirly psychedelic, eggs. I was lucky to get one all the same color without my fingerprints on it.

Funny what brings about memories, and how thoughtfulnesses of the past mean so much all those years later.