I’m in my 30s and hunting hard-boiled, candy, and plastic eggs was pretty normal growing up. I’ve spoken to two people today, one in their 20s and the other in their 50s, who were somewhat aware of the origins of hunting eggs, but never knew anyone who actually hunted hard-boiled eggs for Easter. That was very surprising to me.
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Yep, when I was a kid (80s), we *only* had hard boiled eggs for egg hunts. I didn’t know about plastic eggs until I was a teenager.
I hunted hard boiled eggs and would eat them afterwards. I hosted an Easter Egg hunt for some of my wife’s family a couple years ago. I used some hard boiled eggs and no one really knew what to do with them and questioned it the whole time.
We used to in the 90s until one year a flock of crows got to them first.
From then on, we used plastic.
One side of my family would do a mix of the faux eggs with candy and hard-boiled for an egg hunt. Thats been happening since I was a tot (I am elder Gen Z). I hate hard-boiled eggs so I quickly learned to recognize them and avoid them. None of my other family egg hunts had them tho. We decorated some, but they weren’t used in the actual hunt.
I hunted for hard-boiled eggs and my family still does.
Judging by the number of dye kits I see in supermarkets, it’s still pretty common.
We did.
In my family we hunted plastic eggs and dyed hard boiled ones
True story:
I was born and raised in North Carolina. One year, when I was four or five in the early 1980s, there was an Easter egg (real hard boiled, dyed eggs) hunt at our church (why the pagan tradition at a church in the bible belt? I questioned it once and got smacked). Little me found the most eggs and therefore won the giant milk chocolate bunny (again, pagan much? And honestly, pagan tradition makes more sense to me than Christianity, but it’s confusing to a kid). In second place was a teenage girl named Natasha (yes, I still remember her name), and she won an equally large white chocolate bunny. And that *insert bad word here* convinced young me that white chocolate is SO much better than milk chocolate and we should trade.
To this day I hate white chocolate. And I have (clearly) never forgiven Natasha 🤣
I did, but it was only a family affair in my grandparents back yard, not a community event.
We dye eggs but we just ate them instead of hunting for them. We always did chocolate and plastic eggs when hunting
My family did, but my husband’s family would hollow out the eggs, paint them and hunt those.
He was confused at first but then I told him about the cracking game and that you could still make deviled eggs with them and he seemed less weirded out by it
It was a great tradition! My dad still makes us each a boiled decorated egg and hides some for us to find with treats in them. The golden egg has a $20 in it!
We did!
Yes, I did. I’m in my late 40s.
I also have a very vivid memory of one year (probably 1981?) when I found an EXTRA 13th egg, and my grandma had only hidden a dozen. She said she couldn’t remember the last time they’d “lost” one, so we threw them all out, because no one wanted to break them open to find the rotten one.
We did that when we were kids, but there’s an issue with cooked eggs. They might not be safe to eat if they sit out for too long, and little kids are just the type to want to take a bite out of something that looks pretty.
Because of this a lot of parents would hide artificial decorated eggs, or candy eggs or even hollow real eggs even though the latter are fragile.
My mom would hide them for me. Later, I would hide them for my little niece and nephews.
One summer, along about August, I looked up and there was an Easter egg hiding in plain sight on top of the porch light.
Told mom, who was horrified. At her instruction, I VERY carefully lifted it down and gingerly placed it inside the trash can.
We switched to plastic eggs.
I (50) did growing up, both at home and at community and church events. So did my kids who are in their mid 20s.
Both boiled eggs and plastic eggs.
At the community events there would be prizes for finding special eggs.
Definitely did the boiled eggs Easter morning, with hidden baskets full of treats, too.
My mom has 7 grandkids, and while they’re all too old for it now, she used to take about 100 plastic eggs and put a piece of paper with a number on it inside each egg. All the kids went out and hunted for the eggs, which could be anywhere (the neighbors let her use their yards, bushes, mailboxes etc.) and then each kid opened their eggs and took out the tickets. Each number corresponded with a box full of toys or candy, and they got to pick stuff from each and trade etc. It was super fun to watch.
I did! I’m 24 and did growing up. When he was probably 3 or 4, my brother actually stepped on an egg that went un-found a couple months later. Lovely smell!
We definitely hunted boiled eggs as kids in my family growing up in NW Florida. Never got sick either. I wouldn’t do it now though.
My next door neighbors did. And once we had a new dog, Midnight, and she followed the dad around and ate all the eggs he hid.
We had plastic eggs containing candy.
I did actual hard boiled eggs as a kid and my grandparents did too. We each found an equal number of eggs and could trade for the dyed eggs that we liked best. Then we kept our eggs in a separate place in the fridge and ate them over the next few days.
My wife always used plastic though she likes hard boiled eggs. Now a days almost every hunt seems to use plastic eggs. Our town egg hunt primarily does plastic but they do have a few real eggs which are not food safe (the school kids dye them on the Monday before) and they sit in the sun for several hours. So those get tossed.
I did.
My daughter is 5 and until this year we used the plastic ones because I didn’t want to deal with the mess of dying real eggs with a toddler. I hard boiled some eggs yesterday for her and we dyed them. My husband and I got up a little earlier this morning and hid them around the house for her to find.
I hunted hard boiled eggs.
I did. My family would dye them together and then overnight my parents would hide the eggs we’d dyed and we’d find them for prizes the next day.
Sometimes we’d also go to the egg hunt at the Catholic church in town, and they used real eggs too.
This was in the 1980s.
edit: I know my sister has her kids find real eggs on Easter too; not sure about my brother. I don’t have kids so I don’t personally do anything.
We hunted plastic eggs and had hardboiled eggs in our baskets.
I’m 35 and definitely hunted dyed hard boiled eggs with my sister when we were kids.
50f. We dyed and hunted boiled eggs. 🙂
We did. We’d do egg hunts in the forest so my parents preferred using hard-boiled ones in case an egg got left behind.
We dyed hard-boiled eggs to eat for Easter, but we hid plastic.
I did as kid. I never hid the dyed eggs for my eggs.
Yes, but no one ate them.
We didn’t hunt for the colored hard boiled eggs. We just put them out for decoration and ate them.
I’m Jewish. I didn’t know egg hunts were a thing until I saw people mention it on the internet when I was an adult.
I’m 35 and had hard boiled eggs for Easter growing up.
Yup, my brother and I used to dye them the day before, then my mom would hide them after we went to bed
About to turn 50. Real eggs.
I only ever hunted for the hidden half piece of matza.
I’m 49. We hunted for the hard boiled eggs we had decorated until the year our dog joined in and ate one of the eggs. We switched to empty plastic eggs for the egg hunt after that and gave the dog a plain hard boiled egg since he liked them so much.
Absolutely did. Dyed them ourselves and then hunted for them.
Yes. And one year my mother forgot she hid one on a ceiling lamp. That was a fun smelly mystery a few days later.
We did hard boiled eggs every year as a kid. I only recall hunting plastic ones one year, when we went to a family member’s house.
We used hard boiled eggs for our hunts when I was a kid! I’m 37. There was always one or two that would get lost and would stink to high heaven a few days later. Now I hide plastic eggs for my kids, but we still dye some the day before. We turn them into deviled eggs on Easter.
Yep. Every Easter after the forced march to and from church. Change out of your church clothes and then out in the yard with a basket hunting dyed hard boiled eggs hidden well and not so well all over the yard.
The “Interesting” part was when the one that was missed was finally found mid summer. Such a stench you’d think the gates of hell had opened. 0_0
I did, but I’m pushing 70.
I’m in my 40s and I only remember hunts with the plastic eggs with little treats inside. I could see the adults not wanting to “waste” real eggs because most kids wouldn’t want to eat them anyway.