OUR Easter Tradition

A number of years ago, we started a family Easter tradition that has stuck with us and we've faithfully repeated every Easter. Part of the reason it works, is because it's a really fun activity that works for all ages, so no one outgrows it.

It is our annual Easter Egg Cracking Contest. You too can do this at home. All you need is the basics:

Eggs. Duh. Ok, but our rules are that they must be hard-boiled, and cannot have any stickers or shrink-wrap on them that might give you an unfair advantage. One egg per person.

You also need a prize. This has varied over the years, but often has been a jar of jelly beans. There is only one winner to this game.

Here's how it works. All participants sit around in a circle with their eggs. We decide whether we will start with the pointy end or the rounded end of the egg. Two people begin by positioning their eggs end to end, and hit the eggs together.

In 99% of the cases, one egg will crack, and the other egg will not. If your egg cracked, you lost. (But hang around for Round 2) The winner with the uncracked egg proceeds to the next person in the circle, and they crack eggs. Sometimes, one egg has a super-duper shell, and it outlasts all the others. Sometimes eggs can't last more than 2 crackings.

There are various cracking strategies employed here. The Gentle Approach. (We've given up on that one)

The Quick Attack. Cameron excels at that one:

And he adds the sound effects for good measure. Sometimes the Quick Attack can work to your advantage, since the recipient egg never knew what hit it.

No, Cameron. You may not eat your losing egg. Yet. Play continues around the circle until everyone has cracked one side of their egg.

At the end of Round 1, there will be one person whose egg has not cracked. Move on to Round 2, and now you repeat the whole process, now cracking the OTHER side of the egg. Including the person who won Round 1. We think it's only fair if everyone cracks pointy ends against pointy ends, and rounded ends against rounded ends.

When Round 2 is over, there will be one winner of that round, who is usually NOT the same person as the winner of Round 1. In fact, if they were the same person, I would seriously suspect foul play.

Get it? FOWL PLAY??

(I crack myself up. Pun intended!) Bwahahahahahaha!!!

Note: Alyssa has an illegal egg, since it has a wrap on it, but at this point in our game, it became a free-for-all, and everyone was grabbing a new egg when their last one cracked. That's not usually the way we play it. In fact, when the kids color their egg, they usually have one in particular all picked out to be their egg-cracking contestant, sometimes specially dyed or otherwise marked.

And when Round 1 and Round 2 are both over, the winners of those respective rounds then crack the winning ends of their eggs together in the Grand Champion Round. Once again, one will crack (and I suspect that the person now cracking the pointy end of their egg has a bit of an advantage.). The winner of the whole contest wins the prize.

And at that point, we usually peel absolutely every one of our Easter Eggs, and have them devilled for Easter dinner. No leftover eggs at my house. Ever!!

So this is too late for you to try this year, but NEXT Easter.............