All of a sudden we are basking in
glorious sunshine! It seems like it was
just a few weeks ago that we woke up in the dark it was dark again at
3:00. Now the sun shines through the
crack of our drawn down shade in the morning and it is light until 8:30. Madeline and Amelia have been eager to wake
up at 5:30 in the morning. At least Sweden
finally sprung forward and now the wake up time is 6:30.
A tradition on the Thursday before
Easter is for children to dress up as Easter witches with skirts, headscarves
and painted cheeks. They go door to door
asking for sweets, similar to our Halloween.
According to Swedish folklore, during Easter the witches flew to Blue Mountain
in Germany
to cavort with the devil. I have no idea
how the folklore turned into the Thursday tradition but Swedes do like candy.
The Easter witch reminds us of the
Mrs. Thaw in Elsa Beskow’s book Olle’s Ski Trip. Mrs. Thaw cleans up winter. We are weaving together our spring story with
the Easter witch, Mrs. Thaw, searching for Easter eggs and searching for signs
of spring. Yesterday Amelia found some
buds about to burst by the (frozen) lake and after hunting for Easter eggs today we found a crocus
blooming alongside someone’s house.
I jumped for joy over a huge pile
of snow when I spotted the crocus.
Mostly we are finding muddy slushy snow and ice. We are still happily skiing though. We skied on the lake yesterday to soak up the sun and grilled out along the shore. Suddenly 32F feels really warm.
