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The Holy week - we call it "The Quiet Week" in Swedish but that expression seems very ancient now - most people do not think of the religious signification.
The Easter and Spring time is associated with the awakening of Nature here in Sweden. When going for a walk I enjoy all the signs of that fact. The chaffinch has returned from more southern areas and is trilling. The sheeps bleating, and the light wonderful in the setting sun. The blackbirds in the cherry tree. Some bramblings at the bird feeding table outside our house. That is one of the early spring birds too. The common small birds are so eager in their song.
 We look for tussilago-flowers - horse-slips. That is the earliest wild flower here in our country. I like to arrange moss on a plate and put the tussilago flowers in that together with some small twigs of birch. At Easter Eve we put some woolen chickens in that plate too to make a nice Easter decoration.
 Small sprouts from the daffodils and tulips bulbs along the house wall behind the heaps of snow. There is a brook which comes from the fields behind the ridge and takes the water from the melting snow across our land down to the river. Mostly that
brook is empty but at easter can be full of roaring water. That is one of the special spring sounds too! Easter is a time when we observe the awakening of the nature day by day.
 At Easter Eve there is varying customs in our country. In my family we do like this: Mummy fills big decorated paper eggs with candy and hides them. I do that in the drawing room, as my mother did and her mother before her. Then the children search for them and get the candy.
 We decorate the house with chickens and flying witches and forced twigs with small leaves on them. Those rabbits and hares which seem to be so common in America we don’t have had in Sweden before but nowadays they come here on the Easter Greetings from Germany and America. The old customs mix when the countries are more connected!
At Easter Eve we have the big Easter "smorgasbord".
This is what we often serve in our family:
Cold dishes: thin unleavened bread, Swedish crisp bread, butter, whey butter, small wheat breads, tomato herring, pickled herring, "gravlax" = salted spiced salmon with mustard sauce, salad of red beetroots, sliced egg, sour cream, aladaube, carot salad, cheese.
For hot food there is Swedish meatballs and "Jansson’s Temptation".
Click on the names of the dishes for recipes!
 On the table there are decorated boiled eggs. Lots of them! In our family we decorate the eggs with rhymes or drawn faces. Then I put some onion peel in the water for boiling. That gives the eggs a nice golden colour. Afterwards we have coffee and the Easter cake. You don’t go hungry from such a meal!
Some people shoot but Easter crackers are not a custom in this part of Sweden. It belongs to the west coast, as does the Easter bonfires. On the east coast and here in Norrland we have Valborg bonfires.
Easter Sunday - the Sunday that celebrates the resurrection of Christ, and that is one of the most holy days in the calendar of Christian churches. The Easter message is one of hope and victory over death, for it recalls that Christ rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. Easter symbolizes the love of God and the promise that man's soul is immortal.
In our drawing room I make a special Easter landscape on the cupboard. I build a cave by some rocks. In front of the cave I put a big rock on Good Friday and put some flowers around. Early morning on Easter day the rock is taken away and I place some ceramic figures in front of the cave: three little women and one man. In the cave I put a candle with the sign of Christ on it, christening candle, we call them. That candle may symbolize the risen Christ.
When I build that cave, I use the same rocks which I use building the nativity cave at Christmas. It has some symbolism for me, to use the same rocks for nativity and resurrection. I can inside myself hear my mother singing the very special Easter hymn by Frans Mikael Franzén, that hymn with which the Service on Easter Day always begins. From my childhood I don’t remember my mother at church especially but on that Easter service. She had a beautiful contraalto voice.
To build an Easter Landscape is not at all common in Sweden, neither in the churches nor in the homes. But I find it a way to teach my children and grandchildren about the religious message. On the other hand, to build a nativity landscape at Christmas nowadays is more a rule then an exception
In Sweden we have another Easter Lily than you have in America. The flower we name "Easter lily" is translated daffodil in English.
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