Listener online exclusive: Catching up with the Easter Bunny

Busy bunny: Hopping all over the world during Easter weekend. Photo / Getty Images

Listener books’ editor Mark Broatch takes time out for a quick chat with the Easter bunny.

How are you?

Quite busy at this time of year, thanks, scampering about the place and hiding chocolate eggs.

If I could start with a serious question. What’s the connection between the commemoration of a major event in the Christian calendar and hollow chocolate figurines? We asked ChatGPT and it declined to answer.

Good question. One theory is that chocolate is an evanescent phenomenon that feeds us richly, though only for a short time, always leaving us hungry for more. Something that can only be truly filled by a more spiritual source. Another is that rabbits and eggs are symbols of fertility, a reminder of the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere, which happens at the same time as the traditional date of a Christian event and has been since the 17th century. But not many people put much stock in that.

But where does Jesus fit in?

Well, you know, a lot of people buy those buns with the cross on, though some say that’s actually pagan. But maybe it’s just coincidence. He seemed a really decent guy. To be honest, that kind of stuff is above my paw grade.

How did you get the job?

It was originally a temporary position, but my contract kept getting extended. Inherited it from my father, who got it from his mother. Pays well, and you can cruise for most of the year. You know what they say: never look gift hares in the face. Gig economy and all that.

So, you’re a nepo bunny?

I prefer the term festively favoured. My grandmother said the original eggs weren’t even chocolate, and we had to steal them when the hens weren’t looking. We got the monkeys to paint them.

Easter is a spring festival, but shouldn’t we be celebrating something autumnal down here in the southern hemisphere?

I could cover the baskets of eggs in old dead leaves. Would that do it?

Is your tail really made of cotton?

It’s cotton-adjacent. Very fluffy. The kids love it.

Final question. Is the chocolate bunny a good likeness?

It was taken from a speed-camera photo of my father, and we do look alike. I’ve put on a few pounds, what with extensive product testing. But it’s pretty close.