My parents have a tendency to go a little overboard with Easter baskets.  Every year, my brother and I would wake up on Easter morning to discover baskets filled with pounds of chocolate.  It sometimes took us more than a month to eat it all.  When we went off to college, nothing changed.  My folks continued to buy pounds & pounds of chocolate for our Easter baskets.

My sophomore year in college, I came home for Easter weekend.  Easter morning, we woke to the usual giant baskets stuffed with chocolate.  But we also found a huge chocolate bunny in the center of the dining room table. My dad told us that he found the 25 pound chocolate bunny at a family-owned candy shop in town and couldn’t resist.  We marveled at the sheer size of it.  Then we picked it up to see what 25 pounds of chocolate felt like.  It felt a little light to us. 

So we did what any perfectly normal family would do – we weighed it.  Lo and behold, it only weighed 20 pounds. So again, we did what any normal family would do. My dad called the candy store to tell them about it.  They were mortified at their error (though I suspect mostly mortified that someone would stop and weigh a chocolate bunny & then have the gall to complain when it weighed 5 pounds less than advertised).  They gave us gift certificates to their store to make up for the missing chocolate. We were satisfied with their response, and proceeded to chop up the chocolate bunny and pack it up for our return to college.

I suspect I’ve revealed far more about my family in this post than just about any other I’ve written for @Legacy. This week we share 5 condolence messages about Easter memories:

1. When we bought our house in Mandarin, the sellers even used Leo as a selling point on our house. We were immediately told about this “great Pepperidge Farm guy” that lived across the street! The sellers were so right. Living by Leo and Katherine made any holiday extra special. On Easter mornings you knew to look outside to see that the Easter bunny had been there. Leo would lay chocolate Easter eggs down the driveways and to your front door. At your front door would be an extra large chocolate bunny and other goodies. [Published in the Florida Times-Union]
2. So sorry for your loss, I remember Helen making the Easter “Cheese” and hanging it on the closeline to drain, She’d make it for our family every year, until we moved….Lovely Lady!! [Published in The News-Messenger]
3. Our families (Bips and Haaks) spent many holidays and fun times together. I’ll never forget Easter Day in the desert, shooting clay pigeons, with Esther’s ornate silver candelabra centered on the picnic table. Bill certainly was raised by two people whose humor was expansive and caring, nonstop. [Published in Inland Valley Daily Bulletin]
4. Aunt Holly will always be remembered by my kids for she dressed up as the Easter Bunny two Easters ago and made it the best holiday for them. They were 6yrs and 3yrs old. [Published in Times Leader]
5. Thank you Diana for the good visits in Delaware, even though I was scared of you when I was a little guy. Remember when Ryan and I were visiting during Easter and Ryan shouted, “Just give me my da*n basket!” Growing up, I thought that your basement was the greatest place to play and run around with scooters. [Published in The News Journal]

Legacy.com reviews one million condolence messages each month. Each week, we highlight 5 condolences with a common theme.