Easter 2021

3 April 2021

Easter in Sweden is celebrated on the eve i.e. the day before Easter which is a Saturday. I find it odd initially that most celebrations are celebrated on the eve. For example, Christmas and Midsummer (the day the daylight hours are the longest). 

For this year's Easter, a huge egg was delivered to the doorstep. It IS so heavy. There were about 4.5kg of sweets inside. No chocolates though. Probably it is the cheapest? So, I told my boyfriend to bring the sweets to work because we cannot leave them at home otherwise we will be consuming them. I cannot afford dental care here, so prevention first. It makes me wonder why are there so much sweets during Easter. Why do they give so much sweets to the kids? According to my colleague, she did not had as much sweets when she was little. 

After a little research from Kurera, here is the translated explanation:

When sugar came to Sweden in the 13th century, it was seen as a medicine that the church tolerated even during Lent. Sugar was something exclusive that only the richest could afford and royalty in Europe, based on the Muslim model, sculpted with sugar to show their reverence for the religious holidays. In the 18th century, when the supply of sugar increased and the price fell, it spread in the social classes. Then the bourgeoisie also began to eat sweets at various religious festivals and celebrations to show their status. By eating sweets, we get a feeling of the sweet life and that we are privileged. At the same time, sugar has made a reverse class journey, from the aristocracy's exclusive status symbol to the image of the lower classes' junk food. Not only does sweets give social interaction a royal splendor, but the consumer risks ironically getting the health problems and "black teeth" that were more common among royalty in the past.

Maybe it is not good to emulate the royalties all the time.

For Easter, we had the same kind of food as we had for Christmas, minus the kale soup, beetroot salad and ham. We were very stuffed from the food and had the same meal on Easter Day itself.