A free online lottery to grab tickets starts Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern time and closes at 10 a.m. March 31. Volunteers who want to help run the event can also apply at that time.
Soon, hordes of egg-rollers will be running around the White House lawn, in a tradition that dates back more than 100 years. Children in seersucker suits, church dresses and all manner of gender-neutral Easter best will squeal with glee. Parents will beam with pride. The White House gardeners will weep for months.
Lucky for those gardeners, the White House also announced Thursday that free Spring Garden Tours are resuming on April 9 and 10, before the Easter Egg Roll. Timed tickets will be distributed by the National Park Service from a tent near the Ellipse Visitor Pavilion each morning of the tour starting at 8:30. Tours of the White House itself will resume on April 15.
Visitors will not be required to be vaccinated or wear a mask during the tours or the Easter Egg Roll, according to the White House. It will provide masks when requested and ask anyone who feels sick to refrain from coming.
Chasing after hard-boiled eggs on a grand public lawn is a peculiar D.C. tradition created by children of the Reconstruction and Victorian eras. In the 1860s and ’70s, instead of playing stick ball or “Mario Kart,” they rolled eggs, chasing after them with wooden spoons. President Abraham Lincoln was the first to let kids roll eggs on the White House lawn, during informal parties in the 1860s. Then the event moved to the Capitol grounds, but it was so destructive to the grass that Congress passed a law — the “Turf Protection Act” — kicking them out, signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.
But two years later, in 1878, when the children of Washington showed up at the White House and batted their sad eyes at President Rutherford B. Hayes, he relented and let them use the South Lawn of the White House. Egg tosses and egg croquet were part of the event then, leaving the lawn covered in smashed eggs and, presumably, smelling just wonderful for months.
Adorable children breached the inside of the White House in 1880, leaving the East Room carpet covered in “freshly smashed hard-boiled egg and broken egg shells” but thoroughly charming President Grover Cleveland, according to a Washington Post article at the time.
Adults could attend only with a child, so for a while, tiny hustlers would stand at the White House gates, offering to rent themselves to childless grown-ups.
The event was also attended predominantly by White children until 1953, when Mamie Eisenhower saw Black children peering longingly through the White House gates and insisted that Black families be allowed in the next year.
Presidents have adapted the tradition to their time. President Barack Obama would spend the day playing basketball, while Michelle Obama read to the children. Their egg rolls were filled with characters from PBS such as Clifford the Big Red Dog. They were also star-studded. At one, Shaquille O’Neal read “Green Eggs and Ham.” At the Obamas’ final roll in 2016, Idina Menzel sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and kids got to shoot hoops and play tennis with professional athletes. Black families from across the country made special efforts to ensure their children got to be there.
Trump’s administration took its time organizing its first egg roll, leading to aghast speculation that it would be canceled.
But fun prevailed, and Trump and first lady…
Read More: White House Easter Egg Roll returns for the first time in two years
