Easter in Sweden

Sweden is a very long and narrow country, and because of that many families need to travel a lot to all their relatives and friends during the holidays.

Now days the majority of the Swedish people live in cities, but the tradition says that we should celebrate Easter holiday in the country side and that’s the way we usually do.

In the south of Sweden during Easter it’s warm and sunny. But in the north the Easter is a popular skiing week.

Easter in many other European countries is a big religious feast, but not here in Sweden. It’s very unusual that ordinary people go to church during the holiday.

From candy to salmon
Easter has some ”rituals”. The kids dress up to witches and wizards, nearly like Halloween. Then they walk to all the houses in their neighbourhood and beg for candy in exchange for small paintings they have drawn. When the kids have come home their parents have hidden some Easter eggs for a egg hunt. The Easter eggs are filled with a lot of candy, especially chocolate eggs and chocolate bunnies.

A traditional Swedish Easter dinner contains many varieties of pickled herring, gravlax (salted raw salmon), ”Janssons Frestelse” ( Anchovies, cream and potatoes), lamb roast, meatballs and small sausages. With the food you drink a lot of spiced vodka but everyone around the table must sing a song before the shot! It’s called ”Snappsvisa”

The kids drink a CocaCola similar drink called "Påskmust". It sells two times a year, during Easter and Christmas.