Being the Easter Bunny

Towards the end of last term and before the Easter holidays, my school naturally organised Easter, or Semana Santa, celebrations. When this topic came up in the staffroom, I got very excited and started to blabber on about Easter traditions back in the UK. As I attended a Church of England primary school, Easter played a big part of my childhood and I wanted to recreate my joyful memories at Can Raspalls. 

My stories of Easter egg hunts and egg and spoon races fascinated the teachers. In Spain, Semana Santa is celebrated differently. It is a religious, catholic fiesta which many Spaniards take extremely seriously. I’ve been told about emotional parades with striking costumes and passionate worshiping of la vigen, particularly in Andalucía. 

Chocolate eggs are still eaten but unlike the English, the Spanish don’t see Semana Santa as a celebration of spring. For example, neither lambs nor daffodils are associated with Easter; daffodils don’t even exist here. 

As a result, everyone loved my Easter ideas, so much so that I was asked if I wanted to create an Easter activity for the children. The last days of term were dedicated to ‘workshop’ style games and I was put in charge of one of them. My enthusiasm rose and I excitedly decided to organise an English style Easter egg hunt. I could even dress up as the Easter Bunny!

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Not long after and it began to hit me what exactly I had taken on. Over a few days, every class at school was going to attend every ‘workshop.’ There are twelve classes in Can Raspalls. This meant I had to make an Easter egg hunt for no less than 350 students; aged from six to twelve.

  Panic.

I spent the next few weeks desperately trying to think of how to make this hunt work for everyone. There were a lot of logistics and numbers involved; ‘if there are twelve classes of twenty five and each has to be divided by five, that makes 60 groups, so 60 eggs…etc. etc.’

After a lot of stress, I finally came up with a feasible treasure hunt style idea. Preparation involved cutting out a lot of coloured eggs but I had everything under control. Until the day before, of course. 

At the last minute, one of the teachers noticed a big flaw in my plan. This meant significant changes had to be made, causing high levels of panic. With broken printers and other technical difficulties, it was all too much. Attempting to alter the hundreds of eggs I had so perfectly prepared, I burst in to tears. 

Following this, the deputy head witnessed my breakdown moment and, seeing me so upset, also started to cry. Then, an army of teachers got on board to help me finish the last minute changes. A few hours later, everyone had calmed down and things were looking OK.

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After this incredibly eventful preparation period, Monday morning arrived and it was time to unveil the Easter Bunny’s Easter Egg hunt.  Thanks to a colleague kindly making me a fantastic pair of bunny ears and a cotton wool tail, I looked the part. And the children loved it. Suddenly all attention was on the Easter Bunny. They pointed and squealed, ‘¡mira, el conejito de Pascua!’ Although I felt like a bit of an idiot, their excitement made it completely worth it.

 In terms of the Easter Egg Hunt itself, overall it was a great success. There were inevitably a few hiccups here and there, but I think most enjoyed themselves. Also, I have never seen children so excited. The younger ones almost wet their pants; running around the school shrieking and looking frantically for the hidden eggs.  It was priceless. 

The funniest had to be Years One and Two. After a particularly chaotic session, the tutors and I decided to give each group a rope to hold during the hunt so they would stay together. Watching six year olds attempting to work in a team is hilarious. They flew around the school, ropes running wild as many couldn’t keep up while others ended up in a tangled mess, some on the floor shouting angrily and tears streaming in frustration. It was total chaos. I couldn’t keep a straight face. 

Children take these sort of things very seriously and their competiveness was at a new level. After finishing the hunt and receiving their chocolate egg prize, I had many complaints; ‘she pushed me,’ ‘he stole my egg,’ ‘she called me a loser!’ Luckily everyone eventually calmed down and beaming faces made it evident how much fun they had had. 

In the end, it was worth every second of stress. Watching the pure joy and excitement on children’s faces and knowing you made it happen is a truly unbeatable feeling. 

It’s safe to say that dressing up as the Easter Bunny has been one of the best, and most memorable, moments I’ve had in Ibiza.