Easter in Sweden

Easter is kind of a big deal here, and it lasts over a week. The week before Easter, schools take spring break. Easter Witches fly on Thursday, Good Friday is a "red day" (national holiday), family celebrations take place on Saturday (Påskafton or "Easter Eve"), then there's Easter Sunday, and another red day for Easter Monday. Here are the top 5 highlights of our Easter week in Sweden.

1. The Easter Bush

One required Easter decoration here is what we have dubbed "the Easter bush." You get a bunch of twigs (which must be birch, according to my Swedish source, and must be gathered from nature, not purchased), stick them in a pot, and decorate them with feathers. I decided that my Easter bush would be a super-Swedish minimalist version, with all white feathers (the feathers must be purchased, NOT gathered). Very stylish, right? No. All wrong. My Swedish friend informed me that the Easter bush requires a riot of multi-colored feathers.

Our colorful Easter bush.

We had no idea how to attach the feathers, so we used the very traditional method (<-- sarcasm) of Scotch taping them to the branches. Also, our branches are definitely not birch, as I still don't know what birch branches look like. I just told the children to go out and get some, and I picked the ones I liked best.

2. The Norwegian Invasion

Since we live so close to Norway, and our little town is a seaside getaway for the Norwegians, this holiday week has meant a massive invasion of Norwegians. They've filled up all the local camping spots, seemingly overnight. The harbor went from empty to teeming with boats. The summer homes went from vacant to full of owners and guests.

This lot was just grass last week. Now its all Norwegians in RVs.

Lots more boats in the harbor, despite the grey weather.

In Norway, "Maundy Thursday" is a red day, so all of the state-owned liquor stores are closed. This means the nearest place to buy alcohol for many Norwegians is our little village of Strömstad. Over the years, this pilgrimage became such a tradition that it turned into a rowdy, drunken, parade through town. Norwegian partiers drive classic American cars, blast music, and cause chaos throughout the day. The local police bring in reinforcements and hire locals to help direct traffic and keep the peace. Eventually, Strömstad closed its liquor store (it's now the only one closed in Sweden on this day), but the tradition had been established.


3. Easter Witches

This tradition is so adorable I can barely believe it is real. On the Thursday before Easter (or Saturday in our case, there's some debate and regional variation), children dress up as witches and go door-to-door for candy. Now, when I think of a witch, I think of an American Halloween witch: black outfit, pointy hat, maybe a wart on her nose. The Swedish Easter witches look to me like a cross between Pippi Longstocking and a colorful Gypsy. She's like a Strega Nona style witch.

Vital elements include rosy cheeks, freckles, and head scarf. Perhaps an apron. Luckily, we had a neighbor who also wanted to participate in this tradition (not all kids do it), and our girls were able to go with her. She acted as Swedish translator and neighborhood navigator.

Cutest, happiest, friendliest witches ever.

We had been told that the Easter Witches get candy in exchange for a drawing or a song. Being somewhat lazy, my children decided they would learn a song. When we asked a local which song to learn, they recommended this gem:

"Gullefjun" is mightily adorable but proved too difficult for my kids to learn, so they elected for drawings instead.

Easter drawings to exchange for candy!

Armed with drawings and adorableness, they knocked on doors, greeted people with "Glad Påsk!", and received a bunch of candy (and at least one pastry!) in return.

4. Giant Eggs

As far as we can tell, there's no tradition of hiding a million tiny eggs stuffed with candy for the children to find. The Swedish people are far too clever for all of that. Instead, they put a boatload of candy in one giant egg and hide that. Genius, right?  You can buy various sizes of eggs, pre-filled or empty, and just hide that sucker someplace where the children will search for a while. We are extra lazy, so we hid them in plain sight.

Pringles, giant egg, and giant lolly-filled lolly.

Bounty inside the giant egg!

5. Traditional Food and Drink

We learned that a dish called Janssons frestelse (Jansson's temptation) is traditional in Sweden for Easter. The dish involves layering sliced potatoes and onions with small fish, covering it all with cream and baking it. No one in our house was excited about the fish, so we replaced it with cheese. The Swedes love cheese, so it seemed an appropriate substitute. We also heard that eggs served in various ways are part of the tradition. There's also a special Easter drink called Påskmust which is only around at Christmas and Easter. We tried that, too.

Janssons frestelse(ish) and quiche.

Everybody loves Påskmust! 

We've got one more day to go: Easter Monday. If there are any more traditions left to celebrate tomorrow, we don't know about them. Yet.