Personal Project: The 37th Annual San Marco Easter Egg Hunt
Every year on the day before Easter, something magical happens in a small city park in Jacksonville, Florida. It's the San Marco Easter Egg Hunt, and it's an unofficial event my parents have been hosting for an impressive 37 years.
That's right, y'all, this event is older than ME.
The Easter Egg Hunt means so much to me, I'm not sure I can accurately put it into words for a casual reader.
My parents have an open invitation to anyone in the neighborhood to come, so long as you drop off a dozen plastic Easter eggs filled with candy per child to participate at our doorstep the week before the party. Behind the scenes, however, the preparation has been going on much longer than that. From designing the invitations (my mother) to dropping them off at doorsteps to making the favors for the Easter Bunny to hand out... this is an annual labor of love. And it has been for 37 years.
When I was a child, I couldn't wait to line up on the curb in front of my house with the other kids. Our parents inevitably had shoved us into frilly and adorable outfits that would do nothing but hamper our Easter egg hunting - which we knew was the Olympic trials of childhood. This was serious business. I vividly remember the anticipation and the anxiety - what if didn't find any eggs?!
As I got older, I hit that perfect age where I was deemed old enough to help hide the eggs as well as hunt for them (this is a Moore family privilege, but you have to get up at 6:45 in the morning and help set up card tables). And don't be fooled; there is an art to the hiding of these coveted eggs. The yards around the park and divided by age and difficulty, and the hiders take their job very seriously.
Then, one day, my godfather, who lives across the street and had ALWAYS been the Easter Bunny decided to pass the torch - and the giant bunny suit - to one of my peers, who has been the Easter bunny ever since.
Today, the incredible thing about the Easter Egg Hunt is watching my fellow Egg Hunters return to this unassuming park in the heart of San Marco every year as adults. We're no longer dressed in frilly socks and smocked dresses, we're clutching coffee and carbs and most of my peers are dragging an over-dressed child or three behind them. Those outfits are a rite of passage.
But hours before my generation struggles out of the mini-vans we swore we'd never drive and herds children onto the same curb we've used as the starting line for 37 years, something else magical happens.
All the neighbors who live around the park (lovingly referred to as "The Circle"), struggle out of bed and into sweatpants and sneakers to help my family hide the eggs. We gather in this decades-old early morning ritual, coming together as a neighborhood to carry forward this magical moment in childhood. We catch up, we laugh, we walk together and tuck eggs under mulch, into flower pots and coiled garden hoses, nestle them into decorative Easter wreaths, and along the tires of parked cars. This year, more than most, we all savored this time of togetherness.
Once my dad lines the kids up on the curb and delivers his annual Easter address, which mostly consists of "don't trample each other or the neighbor's flowers," there is a solid 20 minutes of absolute chaos that I like to call "the running of the bunnies."
Then, as the kids gather on the ground to sort through the morning's bounty, the adults (former egg hunters and veteran hiders alike) gather around the coffee and trade stories or life updates for an hour or so... until the inevitable sugar crash happens and everyone crates their exhausted bunnies home.
The Moores and the neighbors around The Circle will all pack up the leftover donuts (individually wrapped this year due to the pandemic) and card tables and gradually retreat back into their houses. I like to think some of the magic of childhood goes with each of them.
Several hours later, my mom and I always take a sleepy late-morning stroll around the park together and hunt for any leftover, unfound eggs. We're really good at it, and this year I found 12.
I left them on the doorstep for some of the neighbor's kids who were watching me with their noses pressed against the window, but it felt good to know that even after all these years as a retired Easter Egg Hunter... I've still got it.