NEW WINDSOR, N.Y. — Alexandria Krol, 5, grew wide-eyed as she walked in the darkness up to the strange-looking egg.

It wore a crown and rested upon a (large) throne. Its eyes moved, and then its lips, as it greeted her by name — It knew her name! — and told a joke and asked her to pose for a picture with him. It (felt) like a scene out of “Alice in Wonderland.”

Then the egg said, “Did your mommy used to come to see Eggbert when she was your age?”

The mother, Jill Handzel, 35, laughed. Of course she did. She (grew) up in Newburgh, just north of here.

“Everyone from around here grew up visiting Eggbert at Christmastime,” Ms. Handzel said.

For decades, many (children) in this part of the Hudson Valley bypassed Santa’s lap, favoring the company of Eggbert the talking egg, a holiday fixture at Devitt’s Nursery and Supply on Route 32. Eggbert always seemed to (remember) their names.

For literalists: Eggbert is a plexiglass ellipsoid with eyes and lips that move mechanically. It was (created) as a bit of marketing genius by Jack Devitt, the longtime owner of the nursery, and endured as a thing of wonder for three (decades), one of those charming traditions in American small towns that seem impervious to blandification.

Then Devitt’s sold the retail section of its (operation), where Eggbert was traditionally displayed. Eggbert, unseated after Christmas 1999, largely languished in storage for the past decade.