Re-Emergence Day

My absolute favorite part of re-emergence day as a child was going to visit the McAlister family who had a giant, heavily wooded backyard. After the first tea of the day, all the kids would go find a place to hide in the woods where they could make a giant pile of leaves on top of themselves and play hide and seek with the adults. After about a half hour the adults would come looking for us and if they spotted a particularly suspicious looking pile, would put their hand into it and then the child in the leaves would "re-emerge." The last kid to be found would win a scented candle of their choosing, but given the general surrounding we always chose something that was super woodsy.

How did kids in more urban areas even find piles of leaves in mid january????

You reminded me of something important - Hide-and-Seek is the more popular game, but Emergence-Me is better known in some areas of the world.

In Emergence-Me, it starts the same where everyone hides while a seeker walks around the space. As the seeker walks by where someone is hiding, the hider jumps out and says “I’ve Emerged!” I can’t recall if there was a way to win. The goal wasn’t to scare the seeker, just surprise them.

I grew up kind of by the countryside but one year we got *so* snowed in we couldn't do it - like, I think 4 feet of snow. So instead we elected one child to be the hidden, and my sisters and brothers and I all wrapped him up like a present then hid him around the house. Then our parents had to go find him and slowly unwrap him without ripping the paper.