At bedtime, the night before Easter, my 5 year old asked: "Mom, can you tell me the story of the Easter bunny?"

At a bit of a loss, I said: "Ask your dad."

Dad googled and came up with the synopsis of the Peter Cottontail story, a complicated tale of April Valley, candy, chocolate eggs, a race to be the Easter bunny, a villain... it was all very confusing.  On top of that, I had attempted to tell them the Jesus resurrection story earlier, so the combination was just plain bewildering - for all of us.

After the kids went to bed, my husband and I were both a little frustrated: the Easter baskets seemed skimpy and our own childhood traditions weren't meshing. The Easter bunny hung my basket on my bedroom door; he bunny hid his basket. Mine had candy and books; his had toys. We both dressed up for church, but our kids have no "nice" shoes and the 5 year old suddenly outgrew all but his jeans. Worse, we'd just never talked about it - our childhood traditions, how we wanted to make new ones for our family.

How do you mesh your holiday traditions together? How do you explain the stories of Easter - whether you tell the religious one or not?