Global Holidays and Celebrations

[Laufey]

Our Easter is probably not that different otherwise but there's one thing that's kind of Iceland-specific: the chocolate eggs.



By which I mean huge chocolate eggs in huge piles in every grocery store everywhere. We do have the smaller egg type too but what people actually buy (in large quantities) are the big ones. The eggs are hollow, filled with candy and usually come with a proverb.



Here's one of the bigger ones and my hand for size comparison. This is by the way nowhere near the biggest available, I think the largest I've seen so far was a one kilo egg.



They also come in various flavours! There's dark chocolate eggs, white chocolate eggs, milk chocolate, chocolate mixed with caramel bits or candy or in this case licorice.



Here's one opened to show just how much stuff it holds!



And here's a proverb: it translates (freely) as "that's how dull iron can be sharpened to bite", meaning that if you push someone long enough they'll eventually push back, no matter how kind and calm a person they are otherwise. Nowadays the companies are sometimes putting in jokes instead which annoys me... I want my egg with a proverb. Always. Some traditions are important and when I want a proverb I don't want a "Help help let me out"-note, I want a proverb.

[Richard Weir]

We get those huge eggs a lot in the UK as well, though the smaller eggs are becoming more popular, possibly thanks to aggressive marketing.

[Aprillen]

And here's a proverb: it translates (freely) as "that's how dull iron can be sharpened to bite", meaning that if you push someone long enough they'll eventually push back, no matter how kind and calm a person they are otherwise. Nowadays the companies are sometimes putting in jokes instead which annoys me... I want my egg with a proverb. Always. Some traditions are important and when I want a proverb I don't want a "Help help let me out"-note, I want a proverb.

Ooh, it's a like a huge fortune cookie, but better tasting and full of sweets! 

[Laufey]

We get those huge eggs a lot in the UK as well, though the smaller eggs are becoming more popular, possibly thanks to aggressive marketing.

Ours just seem to grow each year...

Ooh, it's a like a huge fortune cookie, but better tasting and full of sweets! 

Yesss! The proverbs are serious business too: if for some reason an egg type doesn't have a proverb (the really fancy ones don't always have one) they may even have a warning printed on them - beware, no proverb.

The proverbs are often so old and obscure that few people understand what they're trying to say so after you open them you typically go around asking your family or friends if anyone would be able to explain them, then maybe post it on FB in desperation. Mine this year says "enginn fitnar af fögrum orðum" = "no one fattens out of beautiful words".

[Pessi]

In Finland we have Mignon eggs, real chicken eggshells filled with yummy nougat. So you peel them just like a normal egg, but instead of yolk and white you get nougat. And they can of course be painted just like regular eggs though dyeing them by cooking them with onion peelings or blueberries or beetroot is unfortunately out of the question.

In our area boys "virpovat" too. Our neighbour's son, dressed up accordingly, came to our door last sunday with a very finely decorated willow twig, and my smaller son wants to go and make a round next year too. His basketball club got cancelled last sunday because he was the only one attending. All the others were making their rounds with their willow twigs and were too busy to come to the club.

One of my facebook friends also told she had been surprised by two kids singing the "virpo" spell/blessing instead of just reciting it. I hope this novelty will catch on =)

In our family kids btw don't go searching for dyed eggs - though I have decorated a mignon for each. They search for big cardboard eggs, covered with pictures of bunnies and chicks and filled with easter candy aka egg sheped bits chocolate and fruit sweets. So it was when I was a kid and so I hide same kind of eggs for my own kids every easter.

[kahli]

My family and I celebrate Easter in the US by going to my aunt and uncle's house a few hours drive away. A lot of my other close family comes too. The night before easter we color eggs with points going to the cleverest design or prettiest color shades. This year I made a very special one which you can see in the SSSS art museum!  We have an easter egg hunt in the morning to find little plastic eggs filled with coins. We also hunt for an easter basket which is filled with chocolate and candy. After lunch we have to drive home because we have to be back to school and work the next day. Most schools and workplaces don't have the Monday after easter off. 

[Pessi]

Oh, one more thing about eggs: our egg hunt happens inside the house (this year the easter bunny had hidden the goodies under a pillow on the sofa and among my kid's stuffed toy animals). It's much too cold and muddy outside at this time of year, and today it's also snowing.

I don't know if this was mentioned already (perhaps in the holiday traditions thread?), but in Finland we also grow rai grass or barley sprouts on a plate or some small pot for easter and gather some birch twigs and put them in a vase filled with water so they'll sprout little leaves for easter. The idea is the same as with eggs: refreshing signs of new life after the long, cold, dark winter (well, not so cold any more but darker - and therefore feeling even longer than before - for the lack of snow).

Just in case someone might find this amusing: the word "trulli" that's used for witches (who btw could be any malicious women willing to harm their neighbors and steal their cattle luck, not just bitter old maids) derives from the Swedish word troll. But of course in swedish troll doesn't mean just the kind of troll that the English word means, it also indicates something/someone with magic powers. For example the word for a magician is trollkarl, "troll guy".

[Adrai Thell]

My Easter celebrations include staying in pajamas all weekend, an indoor Easter Egg Hunt, making huge sugar-eggs (is there a real name for them? Hollow eggs with scenes inside?) and listening to ten hours over two days of wonderfulness like this...
http://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/general-conference/april-2015-general-conference/2015-04-4060-elder-jeffrey-r-holland-64k-eng.mp3

All in all, Easter is one of my favorite times of the year!
I'd post pictures to clarify, but I have no way of connecting an SD card to my computer 

[Fimbulvarg]

This is the definition of Easter according to Norwegian tradition: Mountains, skiis (not in picture), kvikk lunsj, cocoa and oranges. I don't even like oranges all that much but it's tradition.



The birch log is unrelated, it just happened to be there. Birching around.

[Aprillen]

The proverbs are often so old and obscure that few people understand what they're trying to say so after you open them you typically go around asking your family or friends if anyone would be able to explain them, then maybe post it on FB in desperation. Mine this year says "enginn fitnar af fögrum orðum" = "no one fattens out of beautiful words".

I love how I can make out that sentence once I know what the words mean, and see the similarity with Swedish! It would be "ingen fetnar av fagra ord", except that "fetnar" isn't a word (although it could be one, we have other inchoative verbs like that).

Oops, sorry... bit of a language nerd here...

[Oh Deer]

My favorite Easter tradition!even though Easter was like, last week
Confetti Eggs! (There's an actual name for them, I can't remember)
 

I saved these from last year..

[Laufey]

Hahaa we got a day off today - the whole country does because it's Sumardagurinn fyrsti, The First Day of Summer. It's an old holiday dating back to the time when a year was thought to be made of two seasons, a winter half and a summer half. Iceland still uses parts of the Old Nordic calendar like Sumardagurinn fyrsti and it used to be a huge celebration, Icelanders used to send each other summer greeting cards around this time, give presents etc.

Nowadays it's just a red day in the calendar, and some notes in the media on whether or not it was minus degrees during the night before. According to an old belief that's a sign of a good summer, people used to bring bowls of water outside for the nigh and then ran to check them for ice in the morning. So yayyyy for a day off!

...so what in the world am I doing up at half past seven? It is a mystery.

[Sunflower]

May 1 is a major holiday in many nations.  In Finland, as the wizard Incanus pointed out, it's a whole week of celebrations called "Vappu."  I'm reproducing the discussion he touched off on p. 308:

Incanus01  Maugchief • 3 hours ago
All-knowing wikipedia explains Finnish vappu-celebrations:

"Celebrations among the younger generations take place on May Day Eve, see Walpurgis Night in Finland, most prominent being the afternoon "crowning" of statues in towns around the country with a student cap.

May Day is known as Vappu in Finnish. This is a public holiday that is the only carnival-style street festivity in the country. People young and old, particularly students, party outside, picnic and wear caps or other decorative clothing.

Balloons and other decorations like paper streamers are seen everywhere."

It is the celebration of students but also international workers' day and sort of welcoming of spring festival.  ... It includes heavy drinking and especially university and engineering (from university of technology) students seem to be preparing for it for weeks these days. The students of different departments have nowadays traditional differently coloured overalls and their student caps with them through the whole of vappu.

Here is a picture of these overalls wearing students (from my hometown no less):
http://kuvat.kaleva.fi/image-feed/01398480-92c3-11e1-9bca-12313b036072/xlarge-11484921.jpg
-Mikko-
 
Maugchief  Incanus01 • 3 hours ago
That actually sounds like a lot of fun. Where I'm from in the US South, we don't celebrate May Day so we really don't have any street-festival type holidays. I imagine it would be kinda nice to have a day dedicated to having a picnic/celebration/party outside with the rest of the community.

Incanus01  Maugchief • 2 hours ago
Now that I think about it vappu is one of those rare holidays when Finns congregate in large numbers outside for a street festival or picnic in this communal way. But it is good that we have such festivities that bring people together to celebrate like this.

-Mikko-

minnasundberg Mod  Incanus01 • 7 hours ago
No [comic] break, I didn't even remember vappu was coming up.

Euodiachloris  minnasundberg • 4 hours ago
What? Promise you'll at least stick your nose out the door to go for a walk on May Day. Unless Murphy decides on torrential rain/ hail/ sleet/ all of the above, of course.

minnasundberg Mod  Euodiachloris • 4 hours ago
*Checks weather forecast for Friday* Ayy-yuuup, rain incoming. But at least it'll be kinda warm (over 10 C) , it's been snowing the whole day today. :I
 
Incanus01  minnasundberg • 3 hours ago
Rain and cloudy is the usual vappu weather. We Finns usually predict it grimly before vappu, mainly so that we can be even more happily surprised if sun peeks through the clouds even once on the 1st of May.

[Sunflower]

The first of May is a holiday in a lot of the world, whether honoring the "Green Root" (ancient pagan agricultural and fertility traditions) or "Red Root" (Labor Day, going back at least to the Haymarket Riots in Chicago in the 1880s).

In Hawaii, where I lived from age 6 to 10 1/2, May 1 is Lei Day -- a celebration of all the various cultures of the Islands.  The schools generally do pageants and performances.

When I was in second grade, I was nominated to be a princess in my elementary school's Court of Royalty of the Eight Islands.  It didn't reflect any particular merit on my part; I suspect I was picked merely because at that age I had white-blond hair and would make a good contrast with my designated prince, a little boy of Portuguese heritage with black hair and a deep tan. 

We were the Prince and Princess of Molokai (a/k/a "The Friendly Island"), so we wore green (a sarong for me, an aloha shirt and khakis for him) with garlands of shiny black kukui nuts.  *

The Lei Day celebrations followed the standard school-cultural-day format:  All 600-odd children, ages kindergarten to sixth grade, gathered out on the main lawn (in front of hundreds of camera-clicking relatives).  The royal court processed out, and then we were seated under a canopy.   Each class performed a traditional Pacific dance or song (Hawaiian hula, poi-ball twirling, Maori titi torea [clicking and juggling sticks], Japanese lullaby, etc.). 

Lastly, the oldest students did a Maypole dance to the "Kamehameha Waltz."  After that, a big potluck.

I still remember those festivities fondly, although that was back in the 1970s.

Do you do anything special for May Day?

* Colors and flowers of each island, as per Wikipedia:
Hawaiʻi: red, ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha)
Maui: pink, lokelani (Rosa damascena)
Kahoʻolawe: gray or silver, hinahina (Heliotropium anomalum var. argentum)
Lānaʻi: orange, kaunaʻoa (Cuscuta sandwichiana)
Oʻahu: yellow or gold, ʻilima (Sida fallax)
Molokaʻi: green, kukui (Aleurites moluccanus)
Kauaʻi: purple, mokihana (Melicope anisata)
Niʻihau: white, pūpū o Niʻihau (Niʻihau shells)

[Haiz]

So they're not exactly spring celebrations, but May is a very celebratey month here in Norway.

It starts off with worker's day/labor day on the 1st, which is all parades and speeches and what have you. I tend to stay at home because taking the bus to the city on special occasions is a hassle.

And in addition to that, high school graduates celebrate their graduating every day of May until the 17th - they'll wear special clothes (red, blue or black pants depending on what field they study, hats, sweaters and shoes covered in norwegian flags, and in trondheim there is a tradition of painted labcoats), party several days a week, do pranks and shenanigans to earn special knots to add to their hats, give eachother nicknames.......... they also get to design their own cards with pictures and quotes on them, these were intended to give away to other graduates, but they have become incredibly popular among small kids who collect them like pokemon cards. Believe me, you do NOT want to be wearing red pants in public in may, you will be crowded by kids who come after you like "DO YOU HAVE CAAARDDDSSS!!!!!!".
Personally, I didn't choose to be a "russ" last year because I'm not one for drinking, partying, pranking or interacting with kids, but I was unlucky in that we had stonemasonry at school just this time in May...... which meant standing outside in a schoolyard for two weeks, surrounded by my red pants wearing classmates, and hundreds of kids who obnoxiously demanded cards and/or explanation on why I don't have any. FUN TIMES

ANd then, of course, there's may 17th, Norwegian independence day, otherwise known as the MOST INTENSE DAY IN THE NORWEGIAN CALENDAR. People wear bunads, there are flags absolutely EVERYWHERE, there are massive parades, the royal family will be standing on the balcony waving all day, there's ice cream and hot dogs and games and singing. Oh gods, so much singing. My family isn't particularly patriotic, and I only attend the parade when it has been obligatory - that is, because of the school I went to. I don't even own a bunad. (taking the bus to the city on may 17th is even more of a hassle.)

And lastly, it seems to be Confirmation Season. Confirmation is this christian tradition of confirming your baptism and thus also christian belief, but almost none of the 15 year olds doing this are doing it as christians anymore. Most kids do this because they get unfair amounts of money for this? I don't really understand how this tradition works anymore - I didn't get confirmed, either. My family bribed me with money and fancy shoes and I was like "all right why not" so we didn't go to the hassle of getting a bunad and inviting the entirety of my family (half of which lives wayy up in finnmark, and other half of which is in czech) for some extra fancy dinner.

so yeah lots of celebrating this month. people are wearing bunads, there are flags, I stay at home most of the time like a bad norwegian hahahahah