Happy Easter 2016!

Happy Easter!

Here are a few photos to share with you from Easter weekend, which we are spending in our little cabin in Dalarna, Sweden.

Leiah is now 10 months old and all over the place, to say the least... she has taken her first steps (with a current record of 12 consecutive steps), learned to wave, and learned to clap. She is very active and quite social, and loves the church's music time that we attend once a week. As soon as the leader starts playing his guitar, she starts to dance, clap, and shout with joy.

Now six years old (perhaps going on 16...) Yaminah is doing very well, also. She dances once a week and plays "innebandy," as well as sings a lot. In the car on the way up to Dalarna she became quite annoyed with me when I mentioned something about her singing in choir in the future. "Mommy, you cannot just assume," she said. "I am going to be a pop singer actually!" She has decided (and is very serious about this) that she wants to be a singer when she grows up, someone who sings on stage and performs for people. To this end, she practices singing quite a lot. :) She loves singing in the choir in our church, Korskyrkan, though, and I love that she wants to sing! We also try to practice reading (I focus on English, since she will learn Swedish more when she starts school). She will usually agree to read the first page of a chapter if I read the rest for her. She has also recently gotten her ears pierced, which she was quite excited about, of course.

Here a few photos from the weekend. Hope you are doing great! Easter blessings to you and yours!

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!

Finally spring! Easter, and decorating ideas

Spring is finally here!
Living in a country that is as dark as Sweden is in the winter, I think the arrival of spring--and light--is even more welcome here. And every year when spring comes I begin to look forward to Easter.

I love Easter! Ever since I was a kid and remember making a pact with my best friend, Kacey, to give something delicious up for Lent (notice the word trying)...Easter has always been an important time. For many people in Sweden these days, Easter means family time; many try to spend a week on the ski slopes. (Schools through high school have a week's Easter vacation). In the latest issue of a recipe magazine from our grocery store chain, Coop, there was an article about Easter with recipes. Loosly translated, the article, with an interview with Jonas Engman from Nordiska museet, says "Today Easter is more associated with food than religion....[For Easter] we eat a lot of extra things we normally do not eat. Now that religion has come to play a much smaller role, food is important for our holidays." (Coop's Mer smak tidning nr 3 2012). The article also mentions little tidbits about why certain foods are traditionally eaten for Easter, such as eggs; it also describes some religious history behind the holiday. Personally, I think this little article says a lot about Swedish society. Food is becoming even more important, since people need to create meaning surrounding a holiday that previously had a deeper meaning. What does this say about society as a whole? Or is this also a direct result of consumerism, more advertising from stores and people being more willing and able to spend more on occasions such as Easter food?

Personally, I want to make sure that Easter is an important time for our family. I also hope to enjoy some extra-special food, but it is also important to remember the reason behind the season.

In order to get ready for Easter, I have prepared a few Easter decorations that I thought I would share with you. We will color Easter eggs closer to Easter and do a few other things, but for now, I have worked on displaying my Easter egg collection. (On our travels, I have not been able to resist buying different kinds of lovely eggs, so now I have one small white plate with my dark eggs from Malaysia, one pot of eggs from Germany, etc...Along with teapots, eggs are something I love to collect...)

I frequently find that decorations that are to be hung, like bulbs at Christmastime, can actually become even more lovely if they are displayed in a group. Here I made a simple centerpiece for the table, using a glass cake stand, for displaying these glass eggs from the US.

I also wanted Yaminah to be involved in decorating, so she helped make a traditional Swedish Easter decoration. This is an old milk jug I found at a second-hand store, which I filled with branches and decorated with colorful (faux) leaves and my small German Easter eggs.

The final result is almost a little over the top, but Yaminah loved it. I also think it is bright and cheerful, almost like a little Easter tree. :) Large pots with branches and feathers are all over town now as well, as decorations outside of little shops.

There are a few weeks to go until Easter, so for now...Happy Spring!