Finnish Easter

Easter is probably every Finnish kid's favorite holiday after Christmas. Not because the end of the fast since we Finns are mostly only officially members of the church but we never go to church unless it's someone's wedding or funeral, but because Finnish kids dress themselves as witches or Easter bunnies, decorate some willow branches and walk from door to door to say/sing a short rhyme and give away the branch to then in turn get sweets. Oh, how I loved it as a kid! Well, now that I think of it we do this one week before the actual Easter, on Palm Sunday.

Me and my friend as witches. I guess we are 4 years old?

And here again with my best friend since 1992 :D

Easter is originally one of the most important christian holidays but dressing up as witches doesn't nowadays really have with the religion to do. Atheists (even officially atheists) do it and as a kid I never though of the religious origins of Easter.
We also do buy Easter egg and decorate houses with some Easter related stuff but in my family it has never had a religious meaning. Actually most of the families take the advantage of the holidays and travel somewhere. We used to travel to Lapland in the Easter, since it's the perfect time of a year to visit Lapland: it's not too cold so you can actually be outside skiing, it's not dark 24/7 and there's still a lot of snow. On the way back from Lapland we used to stop by at my grandparents so I actually associate Easter with the witches and visiting my grandparents. My gramma used to boil eggs that we then painted and my grampa always hid a chocolate egg under his pillow and when I heard the cock crow (well not a real one, it was my grampa, but kids believe everything you tell them :D) I was allowed to search for the egg.



What else... Oh, we grow Easter grass but I don't know why ;D We even do it in the schools and kids are so proud when they see the grass they grew with their own small hands to grow :D Oh, and I almost forgot to mention one traditional Finnish Easter food. It is very delicious but to be honest... it looks like poop! Finns love it, almost all of the foreigners hate it! I'm pretty sure if it looked at all more attractive foreigners might not have huge prejudice towards it. And well, the other thing is the taste: it's made of malt just like beer so it's not really sweet but not salty either. Usually we eat it with milk/cream and maybe a little bit of sugar. It's mostly a dessert, but it can also be eaten in between the meals as a snack or to be honest, whenever you want :D So I think it's the appearance and the taste that makes mämmi so gross - if you are not used to it. I love it! :P

Easter grass in Finnish design bowls which you can find in EVERY home

Mämmi. Every Finn recognizes this box :D
There are 0ther manufacturers too, but this is the most famous

Mämmi with milk. Yummy! :)

Then there are some regional traditions, like the oven cheese (uunijussi in Finnish :)) that for example my gramma makes herself. To be honest I didn't know it was a traditional Easter food since many don't even know of it's existence (I guess it comes from western Finland) and my gramma makes it every now and then. The cheese is of milk which is not processed but straight from the cow so due to it's high fat percent it's pretty sweet. It's made in the oven and can be eaten both warm or cold.

Uunijussi / oven cheese made by my gramma

Oh, the elegance ;)

 This year my Easter consisted traditionally of visiting my grandparents and spending "quality time" with my family. The absolute highlight of this Easter was to go to Scandinavia's biggest bridal gown shop! It doesn't have anything with the Easter to do but my sister is getting married and the shop is in Tampere, the 3rd biggest city of Finland, 200km northwest from Helsinki where most of my relatives live. Oh, I have to say that me and my aunt where a lot more excited that the bride herself. It's not that she wouldn't be excited, it's because I am extremely fond of weddings :D Haha I know what I am going to do if a career as an economist isn't my thing ;D

How can you not love this?

White fur coats behind the chair....!

Unfortunately this Easter wasn't all about happiness and glory: I had totally forgotten that everything is closed in Easter and I had emptied my fridge...! Usually people end their fast in the Easter but I then again started it... At least I ate a lot at my gramma's and I do have some extra after spending the last 6 months in Germany so I will survive this compulsory fast :D (don't worry I did find something in the freezer and in situations like this I tend to be very creative ;) Happy Easter everyone!