Our Easter, Swedish traditions, & tasty sweets

Today is Easter Saturday or "påskafton", which is when most Swedes celebrate Easter. (Swedes almost always celebrate holidays on the eve of the holiday, such as for Midsummer's and Christmas).
We are happy to have my mom here for Easter this year, and my grandfather, 92 years old, also lives in Dala-Järna, where we have our house, so along with Tomas's family here, we had lots of time for family.

Morfar, 92 years old, on Good Friday

For Good Friday we all went to church for services; "Easter Eve", today, we celebrated by having a morning coffee or "fika" at our little house for Mom and Tomas's family. For the fika I made Easter cupcakes from a recipe my beautiful new cupcake cookbook by Leila Lindholm. They are almost sinfully delicious, with freshly-ground hazelnuts, Nutella, cream cheese, and a bird's nest of marzipan, topped with tiny chocolate eggs. (Recipe here http://lifeandacupoftea.blogspot.se/p/favorite-recipes.html which is under tab "Recipes").

Easter cupcake

This afternoon we dressed Yaminah up, according to Swedish tradition, as a "påskkärring", or Easter witch. We went around to a few houses where Yaminah knocked on the door and gave the family a hand-drawn Easter card, and was very surprised and excited to receive some chocolate or fruit in return to put into her little pail.

Yaminah is our little "påskkärring"

For those of you who can read Swedish, here is a short, but interesting article about how the tradition of the påskkärring may have come about. http://www.vf.se/node/8915 and here the Swedish newspaper in English, the Local, writes about modern Sweden's Easter traditions as well: http://www.thelocal.se/3525/20110421/ Time Magazine even has a special article about strange Easter traditions, and the Swedish "påskkärring" or Easter witch tradition is presented. Some say that the tradition of påskkärringar is actually from a very dark time in Sweden's history, when people were terrified for witches and they were even burned. Now people think of påskkärringar as cute little girls and boys who visit people's homes, deliver an Easter greeting, and probably receive a few coins or candy in return. This reminds me a little of Halloween traditions at home in the States. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1889922_1890008_1889927,00.html

With a Master's in Ethnology, of course I can't help but feel fascinated by different cultures and the way they celebrate their traditional holidays. The most important thing is to be together, and spend time as a family. Many Swedes go skiing in the mountains for Easter. But Easter is especially interesting because it is a mixture of a Christian holiday--with beautiful church services all around the country, from all of the lovely, melancholy Good Friday music to joyful and uplifting Easter Sunday hymns--to cute little Easter witches with a dark history that spans hundreds of years.

Although I am interested in celebration of holidays, as a Christian I think the weekend has a greater, deeper meaning, one that has a real potential for joy and hope, even in today's world. Although I was unable to take a picture, you can imagine the simple cross of greens, embedded with red roses, that was an altar decoration at the Good Friday service yesterday. And although the colorful Easter eggs that Yaminah and her grandma painted together are pretty, I think the altar decoration simply, and cleanly, symbolizes the pure beauty of the meaning of Easter.

Yaminah and her grandma painting Easter eggs

Happy Easter!