Norwegians love Easter so much that we are the country with the longest Easter holiday in the entire world – and not without reason. But what makes the Norwegian Easter so amazing?
Give a Norwegian skiing trips on the mountains, a distinguishable tanning line of their sunglasses, and a good crime novel, and you will have built a strong foundation for a perfect Easter celebration. The Easter in Norway is a week where mostly everything else except for quality time with the family and the cabin life is put away for the benefit of work and the stress of everyday life. Just ask any person from or living in Norway – the Easter holiday is the time for “kos”. The day starts with skiing and “Kvikklunsj”, with a planned break for “påskenøtter”, and ends with a thrilling “påskekrim” in front of the fireplace at the cabin.
«Hytta» (The Cabin)
In order to bring out the coziest of the cozy in the atmosphere, you should definitely spend your Easter at a “hytte” (English: cabin). Us Norwegian love to hide away from the stress of the city in the Easter, and if we stay at a cabin, we get just the perfect distance that we need. It’s even better if the cabin is close to the skiing tracks, has a sun-facing wall, and that the fireplace stays nice and warm. The cabin is the linchpin for Norwegian families in the Easter holidays. This is the place where we warm up after a chilly skiing trip, solve Easter crimes together, and scare ourselves with crime stories in the evenings. The cabin is truly the core of the Easter feeling.
Skiing (and “Kvikklunsj”)
Picture this: the snow that fell through the winter has made a perfect powdery finish which sparkles with white over the mountains. The sun is sharp, but warms just hot enough for you to enjoy a cup of steaming hot cocoa by the cabin wall. The ski runs are freshly prepared, and your cross-country skis are freshly oiled with Blå Swix. This is the fairytale the Easter is all about. A popular saying in Norway reads “Norwegian are born with skis on their feet”, but around Easter time it seems like they are born with a Kvikklunsj bar (a milk chocolate-covered wafer chocolate) and oranges as well. Chocolate is such a big part of our Easter celebration that in the holiday and the following weeks, grocery stores sees a 30% increase in chocolate sales! There are few things better than a long skiing trip in the mountains while the sun shines hot, as long as you remember to memorize “Fjellvettreglene” (the Norwegian mountain code), and especially number 8 (“There’s no shame in turning back on time”).
“Påskenøttene”
Quizzes and the Norwegian Easter goes together hand in hand. Norwegians have gathered around the TV since the early 80’s to watch “Påskenøttene”. Påskenøttene is a highly popular family show on NRK (The Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation), and consists of questions and riddles where you can win a prize for the correct answer at the end – usually a tiny radio. If you however don’t have access to a TV, you can find an assortment of magazines dedicated to Easter quizzes. If not, you will most likely find an old book of quizzes from 2010 at the cabin. One thing is for sure; Norwegians love to compete in everything, especially with our families. Just remember to brush of any old knowledge of Eurovision 2008 or the royal family of England, and you will be good to go for your next Easter quiz in the cabin.
“Påskekrimmen”
Påskekrimmen is also a huge part of the Norwegian Easter traditions. An Easter without a good crime novel or TV-series is not a proper Easter. It’s dark outside, the wind howls through the walls, and the trees are so covered in snow you can’t distinguish if the figure you see through your windows actually from the woods or something completely different. Spending your holiday at the cabin gives you a perfect crime-y atmosphere thorough the evening for a whole night of finding out who the real killer is. There’s not without reason that Scandinavian Noir has become a widely known book genre, so authors such as Jo Nesbø, Karin Fossum and Jørn Lier Horst gives you the basis of a real thrill in the holidays. However, if this happens to be too scary for your liking, you can just buy a carton of milk from Tine, and solve the mystery comic that’s on the back of the packet every Easter.
If an Easter with skiing trips in glistening snow, tons of chocolate, and family joy at the cabin soundstempting to you, few other things probably do. The Easter traditions of the Norwegian people is amongst our highest valued tradition around the year – and for a good reason. We have a whole week’s worth of vacation where we don’t have to think about anything other than which ski oil is best or whether or not we remembered to pack the oranges for our trips – and we know how to appreciate it.
Would you like to spend your Easter like us Norwegians do? Get your booking for the cozy cabins here at Tromsø Lodge and Camping down below.
Did you know?
In total, Norwegians consume around 16 million bars of Kvikklunsj in a year, and one third of that is eaten at Easter time. Nidar, a popular Norwegian chocolate producer, make around 30 million chocolate covered figurines in the Easter. Only 5 million people live in Norway – didn’t we say we love our chocolate?
Eggs are a big part of the Norwegian diet thorough Easter. During the Easter holiday, we eat double the amount of eggs compared to any average week of the year. “How much egg can Norwegians actually eat during a week?”, you may ask. We eat around 150 000 kg (or 30 000 pounds)!
Grilling hot dogs on a stick over a bonfire is a huge part of the skiing trip. During the Easter week we eat around 250 million hot dogs! That’s 130 000 kg (26 000 pounds) of hot dogs roasted over an open fire in the mountains.
