no, not rhyming slang.

I've never been on, or been involved in an Easter egg hunt, nor do I remember it being a British thing. Does it happen there or is it a North American idea. The Easter Bunny, now what does he do? is he the Easter version of Santa but bringing eggs??

When I was very young and living in Co Durham we used to make pace eggs, eggs boiled in food colouring or painted. We then played jabby eggs which involved holding a hard boiled egg in your hand and bashing someone else's hard boiled egg. The one that lasted the longest was the winner.

Are there any other regional traditions?

When I was little in Scotland we painted hard boiled eggs then rolled them down a hill on Easter Sunday before tucking into the choccy eggs!

Here, the Easter Bunny/Santa (me) hides the eggs and the kids go on a hunt with their easter baskets.

I think you're right in that it was never a British thing although it seems to have taken off there more so in recent years; the same with Halloween really!

For the last few years, where I lived in Surrey, I know of a couple of large organised Easter Egg Hunts that are held each year now.

I agree with your understanding re the Easter Bunny.

I've never heard of the term "pace eggs" although I have done similar things with my children, both here and in the UK. I've never heard or "jabby eggs" either. Sounds more like conkers to me! Perhaps jabby eggs was a Co Durham thing? Sounds like fun though; perhaps I'll try that one next year!

definitely a co durham thing, and always disappointing. The coloured egss were also called paste eggs, maybe from Pasques?? They were fun.

Doubt it. County Dorhum yokels divn't taak french.

Noo of course not but those rich landlords who named places Hetton le Hole and Houghton le Spring might have passed on some funny words to us peasants, in low income housing.

It seems rather mean spirited for the Easter Bunny to hide the eggs, he should take a leaf out of FC's book and leave the bloody things on the end of the bed.

He's socially conscious - the kids have to get off their arses and run around, burn off a few calories before stuffing their faces with the choccie. It's a new-ish tradition which co-incides nicely with the rise in prominence of couch-potato kids.

Mind you - if he was that conscious, he'd give up some carrots instead.

We took our kids to the park so that they could "roll their eggs".

Hard-boil some eggs, decorate them, and then roll them down a hill until they crack. Then scoff them.

Must be a Scottish thing.

when I was growing up we used to have an Easter Tree. I think it was a German tradition that my parents picked up while posted there. Take a few twigs (I seem to remember pussy-willow catkins), stand them in a vase, and decorate with decorated blown eggs. Us kids used to paint a couple of eggs each every year, and combine them with the previous years' (minus the inevitable breakages and resultant tears...).

We did that until a few years ago. It is a German thing. We've still got years worth of eggs in a cupboard somewhere.

Think it must be

Yes, but it's fun for them you have little clues to lead them to the eggs and they love it!

The only tradition we had growing up was to gorge ourselves on chocolate for breakfast

I do an easter egg hunt for the kids - The easter bunny (ie me) hides the eggs and then they all run around screeching as they find them.

I make them pool their haul and then divide it equally among them all to avoid fights and arguments.

The ones I recall from childhood & still know of now are:

blowing eggs & decorating them
making easter bonnets & competitions
making easter biscuits / cakes
eating chocolate eggs - as many as allowed

newer ones are the easter egg hunts to me too, as are the egg rolling (think that went on but not in my bit of Yorks)

hunting the eggs was an easily adopted time killing activity for brownies, playgroup, school etc but not something I has as a child myself.