Easter is upon us (wasn’t it Christmas yesterday?) and today I’ll give you a crash course to the Swedish Easter traditions. There are not many, but there are a few things that you need to embrace if you are going to celebrate a prober Swedish Easter. And I promise you, this post is completely April Fool’s free.

First of all, let’s get some the vocabulary out of the way:
Easter = Påsk (Comes from the Hebrew word “pesach”, which means “Passover”.)
Glad Påsk = Happy Easter
Maundy Thursday = Skärtorsdagen
Good Friday = Långfredagen
Easter Eve/Easter Saturday = Påskafton
Easter Sunday = Påskdagen
Easter Monday = Annandag Påsk

Påskkärringar (Easter witches)
This weekend, Swedish kids will dress up as witches and old men (the boys)  and go door-to-door and sort of trick-or-treating and get candy in exchange for Easter greetings. But why witches? An old legend from the 17th century tells the story about how the witches flew on their brooms to a place called Blåkulla on Maundy Thursday. There, they had a big feast  and did not return until Easter Sunday. To scare the witches away, people lightened fires and fired rifles. This tradition lives on today, but today the rifles are exchanged into firecrackers (påsksmällare) and the fires have turned into big Easter bonfires (påskeldar).

Påskägg (Easter eggs)
The eggs we eat are decorated, as in many other countries. But we also have a cardboard version (non edible…), painted with Easter motives and filled with candy (if you are lucky).

Påskris
Påskris are simply branches (mostly birch) decorated with colourful feathers and other Easter-like stuff. It is the Easter equivalent of Christmas tree but since I couldn’t find any birch in our 10 square meter small garden, I Easter-pimped an old dried chili plant. Not especially impressive, but imagine it being twice as big and a lot livelier, and you’ve got the picture.

Then there’s of course the food! Since we tend to enjoy our big feast on Saturday, I’ll spare you the yummy details until then.

Glad påsk everybody!