God Påske (Happy Easter)

Well today was certainly had a few surprises. It was my first Easter in Norway, and it wasn’t anything like I expected. I guess I’m so used to the American version of the holiday that I mistakenly assumed it would be somewhat the same in Norway. At our church back home, Easter and Christmas are the biggest attendance days of the whole year, but that certainly isn’t the case here in Norway. We were up and ironing clothes to look our Sunday best this Easter morning. The sun was out and Paula and I walked to Agape Church, just down the road. I asked Kory to drive the car to get there earlier to save us a seat as I expected the place to be packed out. We got there five minutes early and there was only about 20 people in the whole building. Apparently everyone was still up in the mountains with their crime novels and oranges. I was shocked. Even the pastor had the day off. Eventually more people trickled in, but certainly no one was wearing their pretty new Easter dresses or looking their finest for this Resurrection Day, so it threw me for a loop. The overall attendance was very low and they didn’t even have coffee afterwards, everyone just went home. I was so bummed!

Paula and I got busy making dinner for Odd and Turid and Hege, who were coming over at three. As I was making dinner, I saw Sabina ride by on her bicycle. I yelled out the door to her “Happy Easter” and she yelled back, “It’s not Easter today – that was YESTERDAY!” I was sure I misunderstood her. When Tobias came inside with Kaleb, I asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner and he did. I asked about his Easter traditions and didn’t he have a big Easter dinner with his family and do special things today, and he said, “We did all that yesterday.” So it seems that Norwegians do the same thing for Easter as they do for Christmas, they big deal it on the night before. So today, for “real” Norwegians, all the celebrating was over and done with and it was just a day to relax and go for a walk or hike. Boy was that hard to digest. Here we were sitting down to a big turkey dinner, and it was just an ordinary Sunday to Odd and Turid. It sort of took the fun out of it. (They had their big family meal last night with all of Odd’s kids home for the holiday.) But we still enjoyed having them here, with Tobias and my friend Paula, and we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore.

Kaleb was nearly beside himself all day with anticipation of the traditional Easter egg hunt. I shipped over plastic eggs to fill with candy on the chance I couldn’t get them here, and I was right. They don’t do egg hunts here and they certainly don’t sell plastic eggs. Paula brought lots of candy to fill them up so after dinner Paula, Turid and I were out in the yard hiding the eggs while Hege, Tobias and Kaleb were squirreled away in the bathroom waiting for us to be done. Hege and Tobias were quite excited about it as they didn’t know what to expect and they had never been to such an event. I made sure they knew this was not to be “fair” and they got to keep whatever they found. Hege found the most eggs but they all found enough to make them happy. Kory and Odd sat up lawn chairs to watch the show. Neighbors came out of their houses wondering what in the world was going on and people driving past or walking in front of our house watched with interest as these kids were running around the yard picking up things and putting them in a bag. It almost looked like they were picking up trash, so I can’t imagine what people thought since it’s not anything they have in their frame of reference. The kids had a great time and Tobias and Hege were thrilled they got to keep the plastic eggs, so perhaps next year there will be a few more egg hunts in Norway even if we aren’t here.

This past week we were on vacation we saw a lot of advertisements in the stores for Easter things, and every ad had a big yellow chicken in it. Some malls even advertised photo opportunities for the kids with the Easter Chicken (some guy dressed up in a chicken suit). I asked someone why they don’t do the Easter Bunny thing like we do in America and they said, “Because bunnies don’t lay eggs.” Kaleb questioned the whole bunny/egg thing when we was three years old, so now that I think it about, we must look pretty foolish to the Norwegians that we tie rabbits and eggs together with Easter. But somehow the idea of an Easter Chicken still makes me laugh.

After dessert, Kaleb and Tobias took off to go float some plastic eggs down the creek at the end of our street, Kory and Odd and Hege went for a walk back to Odd’s house, and Turid, Paula and I went for a long walk to get some fresh air and to give Paula a chance to check out our neighborhood. Paula has been my greatest Easter gift ever as I haven’t had to clean up a thing – she’s just a dishwashing dynamo and a great help to have around. If I didn’t feel so guilty about that, I’d be enjoying myself even more. But sacrificial love is what this day is all about. Hallelujah!