Typical Swedish Easter Egg So many people don’t remember why we celebrate Easter, or even how to celebrate it! I discovered this at work when we were discussing the long holiday ahead (Four days, Fri-Mon).

Several people didn’t quite know why Easter is celebrated, and in particular, they didn’t know why Good Friday is a holiday. And these are Western Europeans who grew up in a Christian country!

In my country, Sweden, Easter is a very well liked holiday as it occurs just when the spring arrives in the middle (largest) part of the country. There are all sorts of traditions associated with it that certainly don’t exist here in England.
Swedish Children being Easter Witches…
To start with, there is the Easter Witch tradition. On Easter Eve, children dress up as witches and go knocking on doors to beg for sweets (a bit like Halloween in the US, I guess.)

The witch costume is normally a long wide dress or skirt, a shawl to cover your head, like an old fashioned peasant, a broom and a basket or coffee pot to put the sweets in. The children also like to use charcoal and lipstick to make themselves look ugly, like a witch! More on witches in a later post, they play a really large part in Swedish folklore.
Easter Twigs with Feathers, outdoors
Another tradition that I have not noticed anywhere else is the Easter Twigs tradition. At around Lent, people pick twigs from birch trees or other trees and attach feathers to the twigs. The twigs are then kept in a vase until Easter at which point little leaves have started to develop. Just before Easter the twigs get re-decorated with miniature easter eggs and other decorations.

Some people in Sweden eat lamb during Easter, but it is not as strong a tradition there as it is in England, for example. A lot of people just eat traditional Swedish dishes like herring, salmon, meatballs, potato-gratin with anshovis etc.
Boiled and hand-painted eggs
But one important food-item that nobody forgets is the eggs! People with children and people with a strong sense of traditions tend to make painted boiled eggs. The eggs are painted with water colours if you take a basic approach.

If you want to be really traditional there are all manner of sophisticated ways of decorating the eggs after they have been boiled. I remember trying a few in cooking classes in school and it was great fun. As a child I remember painting them with water colours. I also remember eating five or so in one go!

There is also a tradition that is more common all around the world: The hunt for easter eggs! I am sure that must happen outside Scandinavia. Swedish Easter eggs are normally made of papier-maché and are filled with sweets according to the recipients taste. Many people in Sweden like licorice and a type of peppermint-sweet that is made regionally in Sweden. Personally I like chocolate!
Easter Twigs, re-decorated…
One character associated with Easter that I have never really understood is the Easter Bunny. Where does he come from, why a bunny and how did the tradition start? A quick look in Wikipedia revealed that he was originally called the March hare and similar around Europe and his role was related to pre-christian fertility rites… Oh my! He was later commercialised by the Americans (now there is a surprise! ;-)) and only reached his current level of fame in the mid 20th century.

This brings me back to my origial point: The fact that most people don’t care about the relationship between Christ and Easter. They’re just in it for the food, sweets and days off work… But on Good Friday we should remember Jesus’ suffering and death that would free us from our sins. On Easter Sunday we should celebrate his resurrection and the message of hope and joy that it brought.
Ok, maybe some facts are slightly hyped…
But don’t let that distract you!
I was not brought up a Christian, but after much thinking about it, I have come to the conclusion that I am a Christian and that I more or less want to believe in the Bible as the foundation for how I live my life.

If you are like me, an average Western person mainly pre-occupied with material success and that illusive phenomenon, love, then I would like to encourage you to investigate Christianity further.

It really is a lot better than it’s cracked up to be in contemporary society. Christians are not fanatical, uneducated idiots and the Bible is not a story book that rambles on about irrelevant events. Quite the opposite!

Christians are generally nicer and more interesting than most people. The Bible is like a Pandoras box. The more you learn about it, the more it starts to make sense.

I am a techie, a computer programmer, I promise you I do not believe in, or approve of nonsense. The Bible runs as intelligently as a very well written function in C++ … Probably better !

Where am I going with this? Well I just wish people would remember that along with all the folklore, the sweets, the food and the days off work or school there is another message coming from Easter: Jesus died for our sins and was re-surrected again from the dead.
Technorati Tags: prolife”,easter,egg, easter+bunny, resurrection, traditions, Sweden, jesus, Christian