Questions about Sweden

[KungKras]

Ka-pi96 said:

Puppyroach said:

That is not to say we don´t cherish some of the more common swedish traditions (some of which goes a couple of hundred years back in time). Christmas is huge, but not as a christian holiday. New years eve is big aswell. Halloween is big but has traditionally been celebrated in a different way than the US version. Easter is huge aswell, where kids dress up as witches and go around collecting candy. And the big one is Mid summers eve, where se drink schnaps, eat "sill", raise a celebratory pole and sing songs. We also have Cray Fish parties with funny hats and a party where we eat fermented fish.

Wait, so Swedish Easter is like Halloween for the rest of the world? What to you do on actual Halloween?

The traditional way of dressing up like witches looks like this, so it looks a lot different from halloween.

There was a christian holiday before halloween called "The night of all saints" where people used to go visit the graves of dead relatives and light candles. But it's been largely replaced with the americal-style halloween which is pretty much exactly like in the US at this point. It's for the better IMO. Our best holidays are the pagan or secular ones anyway like yule or midsummer. I wouldn't bat an eye if the christian ones dissapeared.
We still call christmas by it's pagan name "Jul" or "Yule". And a some of the pagan immagery and traditions have survived, like the yule goats. Scandinavian christmas kicks ass :)