I followed along on my first Swedish Easter Egg Hunt (Påskäggorientering) a few days ago on Maundy Thursday. You’ll remember from my last post that Maundy Thursday is also the day young girls dress up like Easter witches. (see the pictures below). This year marked the tenth year of the Easter egg hunt in Uppsala and a record 2100 children participated.
Here's the ticket/orienteering map for the egg hunt in Uppsala.
It wasn’t really an egg hunt in the way that I think of egg hunts. The idea was not to go around looking for eggs. Instead, parents purchased a ticket in advance for their child. The “ticket” was actually a map with seven tabs at the bottom. The tabs represented seven “stations.” The child, parents in tow, went to each station and punched the corresponding tab with a special hole punche. The stations were spread out in a loose circle around the castle in central Uppsala.
Parents helping kids "punch" their egg hunt maps so that they could go on to the next station.
Once the child obtained all seven punches, then they went to the finish line and received a large, see-through plastic egg filled with candy.
The finish line!
At the finish line, they also had a small fair with various companies sponsoring booths and giving out products such as free hotdogs and fruit juices. There were also a number of mini contests. There was a contest to name two calves that were onsite (the winning names will be announced soon in Uppsala Nya Tidning (UNT), the local newspaper that sponsored the event. Click here to see more pictures online. The newspaper took photos of all the young Easter witches, with a costume winner to be announced next week. There was also a small dance contest and a “draw an Easter picture” opportunity.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary, singer Anna-Karin Nytell Oldeberg performed and Governor Peter Egardt greeted the children with his wife, Lena.
A young "witch" holds her prize--a plastic egg filled with candy.
It was windy and got progressively colder as four o’clock approached so I was very glad to get home and begin eating our Easter dinner. There were eight adults and five kids-all boys!
We enjoyed the traditional herring (sil) in various sauces, along with a few shots of aquavit. This in turn required a few Swedish drinking songs. We also enjoyed some not-so-Swedish deviled eggs that one guest had learned how to make when she lived in America. (No, not me. My big contribution was the asparagus!) Then it was on to some tasty salmon (lax), new potatoes, asparagus, some chicken skewers, an enormous salad with mozzarella balls that were egg-shaped, lots of beer and wine, a cheese plate, and then a cake. Whew, I couldn’t eat another bite!
Glad Påsk, everyone!
The Easter Table right before we brought most of the food out.
