Seat of Our Pants » Easter

A Very Happy Easter to You All

Jaime — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:04:42 +0000

Northern Swedes and Americans celebrate Easter in very different ways. They celebrate for an entire week. We generally gather on Sunday. They dress as witches. We dress (unfortunate) men as rabbits. They decorate eggs, then eat them. We decorate eggs, hide them then set children loose to find them.

Either way you look at it, it’s a pretty great holiday. It’s time for family, good food, drinking wine, telling stories and laughter. In that way, we all celebrate the same way.

Happy Easter (Glad Pask) Everyone!

The Witches of Easter Easter is the time of year when witches mount brooms...
Paskmust – THE Easter Drink Palates are refined in youth. If you grew up eating...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Paskmust – THE Easter Drink

Jaime — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:22:48 +0000

Palates are refined in youth. If you grew up eating or drinking something, chances are you’ll tie it to your childhood and not see it for what it really is. I’ll use the Swedish Easter drink, Paskmust, as an example. I find it repulsive. It smells like alcohol but it’s a children’s drink. It contains weird ingredients like hops and barley, but it’s a soft drink.

Yuck.

Despite my very legitimate arguments against it, the Swedes love it. They’ve been drinking it every Easter (and Christmas) since they were kids and can’t see that it actually doesn’t taste that good.

Martin tells me that he feels the same way about peanut butter but he’s obviously lost his mind. What’s not to love about peanuts mixed with sugar? Come now Martin, where would the world be without peanut and butter sandwiches?

A very dark place, I think. Very dark, indeed.

The Witches of Easter Easter is the time of year when witches mount brooms...
Drink at Your Own Risk This is why travelers should not drink the local’s “drinking...
Baby Steps Toward Beauty There comes a time in a woman’s life when she...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Witches of Easter

Martin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:04:11 +0000

Easter is the time of year when witches mount brooms to fly to Blåkulla: an offshore island where they cavort with the Devil for the better part of a week. To make things worse, the witches have a spell that makes them look like they‘re still at home. All this is according to ancient Swedish lore. Sounds silly? Well, people were actually burned at the stake for these types of things in the 1670s, after they confessed to their crimes under torture.

With this background in mind, it is strange that one of the enduring Easter traditions in northern Sweden is to dress children like witches and have them walk from house to house. The kids wear scarves, bizarre make-up, and tote brooms with an empty coffee pot attached. It is a local version of trick and treat: if you see them you have to give them some spare change or a fistful of candy.

The Sangis witches of Easter

Since we were out of kids of eligible ages in this household, we dressed Jaime and my mom. They did a slap-up job, and while they sure had fun I didn’t see them go supersonic on their brooms. The question remains if we are just under their spell? Are they really at Blåkulla? I guess we’ll never know.

Happy Easter everyone!

Entering the Winter Wonderland We’re back at my parents place in Northern Sweden –...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.