When Easter Sunday rolls around, kids across the nation flock to backyards and parks to find colorful plastic egg-shaped containers filled with candy, stickers, or even coins that were presumably hidden by a semi-anthropomorphic rabbit. It’s a timeless tradition meant to celebrate the resurrection of one of Christianity’s most familiar faces—Jesus Christ.

While searching for candy-filled chicken eggs left by a bunny seems highly offensive to some hardcore Christians, the tradition is nonetheless a harmless activity meant to entertain America’s youth and bring out the Easter spirit in all of us.

In reality, there is no true Easter bunny. The one hiding the Easter eggs is instead typically an adult human, oftentimes a parent, teacher, or church leader. The hider will typically scatter the eggs throughout a designated area with given boundaries, choosing hiding spots ranging from the extremely obvious to wildly difficult, depending on the age range of the egg hunters.

You will likely want to have a minimum of ten eggs per hunter, though some more elaborate egg hunts will feature up to forty eggs per hunter. If you have a group of 20 hunters, you will want around 200 plastic eggs—no small task. Depending on the square footage of the hunt area, you could quickly run out of good hiding places.

If you are hiding Easter eggs, you’ll want to make sure you’re catering to your full audience. If there are toddlers, you’ll want to place some eggs in the wide open with absolutely no element of deception. A blue egg sitting right in the middle of the grass will be easy for even the youngest of Easter enthusiasts to locate. A rule should be made, however, that prohibits older children, adolescents, and adults from claiming the eggs obviously intended for the most youthful. This will prevent hard feelings, including but not limited to crying, bawling, tantrums, fisticuffs, and even quitting the hunt altogether.

Some eggs should be hidden in moderately easy areas as well. Say you are hiding the eggs in a typical outdoor setting, perhaps a parking lot of park. Place some eggs behind a bush, shrub, or even tree. Place some eggs in low-hanging branches. Some egg hiders will even place eggs behind rocks, light posts, fence posts, statues, fountains, playground equipment, and safely parked automobiles. But stay away from dangerous areas like roads, electric boxes, babbling brooks, riverbeds, pets, holes dug by wild animals, and of course anything mobile.

For the seasoned egg hunter, you’ll want to deliver a challenge. No one likes a hunt that’s too easy. This is where your creativity comes in! All egg hunting grounds vary wildly, so you’ll need to scope out some creative hiding places. Think tall, thick weeds, dense forests, and muddy puddles. If you’re indoors, think behind books on a shelf, inside lighting fixtures, and of course, inside couch and chair cushions.

If the situation calls for it—and it rarely does—you could choose to hide several eggs on or inside of you! Though highly irregular, some egg hunts are of the R-rated variety and you could consider putting some in your pants, shirt, hood, hat, or shoes. Just remember, if you choose to go that path, you’ve essentially given all egg hunt participants permission to touch you. You run the risk of being seen as some sort of a pervert, and Easter is frequently considered a time to avoid this type of behavior. Again, use your best judgment and have fun with it!

Consider these fun twists to make an egg hunt more creative!

• Either evenly disperse the eggs throughout the area, or trick everyone by placing a vast majority of the eggs in one small section.
• Have some “dud” eggs that either contain nothing, or a “prize” no one would want, like a dead fly.
• You could hunt for eggs in teams, and count up the eggs at the end for a big prize.
• Each egg color could be code for a certain age group. The yellow eggs are for kids 3 and under. The blue are for 4-8, and so on.
• You could hide objects besides eggs, such as candy, stickers, and money. Just bypass the silly egg ritual and get straight to the good stuff!
• The hunt could be timed, and the hunters have a limited time period to find as many as possible.
• If the group’s age ranges dramatically, the hunt could go in waves, with the youngest searching first.
• For a super fun religious twist, you could stuff the eggs with a Bible verse instead of candy! At the end, have the hunters read their verses and educate themselves. If they think that’s lame, you could surprise them with candy afterwards, or just let them deal with it.

Above all, make sure everyone gets at least one egg. The only known way to ensure this is to put either a limit on the number of eggs, or put names on the eggs so each individual must find their own eggs. The last thing you want is that last person sulking as they trot through the moist morning grass with an empty basket. It’s not in the Easter spirit! You could also keep a few eggs back in reserves to give to any poor child who is unable to find one on their own.

Remember, bullies love Easter egg hunts. If they have trouble finding an egg (or even if they don’t) they love to take the opportunity to steal from others, oftentimes by physical means. Be prepared—there is certainly going to be at least one bully or poor sport at every hunt, and someone is bound to get an injury!

Though Easter is a time for togetherness, celebration, and fun, the egg hunt, if executed haphazardly or improperly, can result in hard feelings and ruin the entire day for everyone. So plan with care!

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My Hot Take:
As an eighth grader, I once was put in charge of hiding Easter eggs for a group of young Sunday school children. My friend Dusty and I hid all of the eggs inside the church organ. Like 300 eggs. The kids were all very disappointed and church elders were irate when the organ had to be disassembled to free the eggs. It cost a lot of money to repair. It was a good laugh for me and Dusty, but don’t do what we did.

tl;dr
Hide Easter eggs in age-appropriate places and make sure everyone gets an egg.