Easter in Scandiland

You may think that Easter in Scandinavia is all about, well, eggs and chickens, but you couldn’t be more wrong.  There is heaps more to it than that.

Denmark:  kids make “gækkebreve” – this literally means “"a letter for a fool".  They cut a pattern on a piece of paper and write an Easter poem, signing their name with dots and add a dried Snowdrop flower in the letter.  The receiver has to guess who it is from – and if they cannot, by Easter Sunday, they have to give the sender an Easter egg.

Sweden: Kids dress up as Easter witches and go from house to house asking for Easter sweets and treats.

Norway:  here, the most peculiar Easter traditions have formed over the past years:  Easter is the CRIME NOVEL SEASON.  Yeps, in Norway, sales of crime novels  triples as people prepare to pack their backpacks to travel to their little log cabins in the country side.  They stuff the packs with crime novels, Kvikklunsj chocolate and oranges. Kvikklunsj chocolate is a bit like KitKat, only SO MUCH better.  It is one of the main Norwegian food groups also.  Almost.

Even the milk cartons in Norway are re-printed for Easter and these also feature “mysteries” on them for people to solve.  Yeps, during Easter all Norwegian people turn into their own version of Inspector Barnaby, albeit Kvikklunsj eating, hiking ones.

You can buy Kvikklunsj, Solo and heaps of other Norwegian staples in our webshop.  Come to think of it, you can buy Danish Easter treats too - and those fantastic Finnish chocolate eggs in REAL eggshels - and we still have a few Easter Egg boxes left too.