Ever wondered how to celebrate Easter like a true Swede?
The Swedish Easter Traditions are a little bit different from the ones in the UK. Being a secular country, the Easter holiday season is more about celebrating the first long, holiday weekend of spring, than any religious elements.
Here are three of our favourite Swedish Easter traditions:
1. Egg rolling
Egg rolling is a traditional Swedish Easter game, similar to a game played here in the UK and Scotland. However, the Swedish version has an eggs-ellent twist. Instead of rolling eggs down a hill, they set up roofing tiles to roll the eggs down. The person whose egg doesn’t break is the winner. Egg-citing stuff if you ask us.
2. Summer houses
While most Swedes live in towns and cities, Easter is the first long weekend of the year and for many it provides an excuse to enjoy the country's famous nature. Summer holiday cottages are the perfect escape and plenty of people flock from their urban flats and join relatives for some rest & relaxation in the forest or by the coast.
3. Feathered twigs
If you're invited to a Swedish lunch at a summer house, you might be wondering why on earth there are vases filled with bunches of twigs covered in feathers. In fact, Swedes have been decorating small birch tree branches like this since the 1800s. These originally served as a reminder of Christ’s suffering and children would pretend to lash each other with them on Good Friday. Nowadays, the feathers tend to be brightly coloured and tend to remain on the table.
