Happy Good Friday?

Today is Easter Monday, the end of our four-day Easter holiday. Normally, a four-day holiday on the cusp of vaguely spring-like weather is a Godsend for most Finnish families, often a good opportunity to get out of town for a while or even an end-of-season ski trip to Lapland. Of course, this year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it's different, with all restaurants, bars, theaters, swimming halls, sports events, churches, you name it, closed and deserted, and even the possibility of non-essential travel outside the Uusimaa province where Helsinki is located forbidden by law.  There was no trick-or-treating this year. It hardly felt like Easter.

After I moved to Finland many years ago and was adjusting to the social norms here, one thing I learned was the proper way to give Easter greetings. With a lot of holidays here, you use the word “hauska” (which means “fun”). You say “Hauskaa joulua!” (Merry Christmas), “Hauskaa vappua!” (Happy May Day), and “Hauskaa juhannusta!” (Happy Midsummer). So, it seemed natural to me that you would say “Hauskaa pääsiäistä!”, (Happy Easter). After all, in the States we say “Happy Easter”. Seems normal.However, I was quickly corrected that the proper usage is “Hyvää pääsiäistä!” (literally, Good Easter).

The reason was, of course, that Easter is supposed to be a solemn holiday, not a fun one (remember “hauska” means “fun”). In English, "Happy Easter" does seems to work, since the Easter story ends with Jesus rising from the tomb, a happy ending. To think of it as a “fun” happy-go-lucky ending is perhaps to diminish the gravity of the event.

Good Friday is another matter, however. Most Christians probably don’t think of the execution of Jesus as a “happy” event -- well, maybe no one except Donald Trump. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “Happy Good Friday”. Even though the execution was necessary for the rising, I think most Christians think of it as a sorrowful event. (I haven’t gone to church in decades, so maybe I’m wrong about that.)

Of course, now that Trump has set the example by tweeting that exact greeting, I’m sure it will be quickly adopted by all his followers. Next year, no doubt, MAGA folks will be sending out “Happy Good Friday” cards.

Easter in Finland

The great thing about Easter in Finland is that it’s always a four-day weekend, thanks to the fact that, as the most important holy day in the Christian calendar, it’s also an official public holiday.  And it’s not just one holiday.  Besides Good Friday and Easter Sunday, Finland also celebrates Easter Monday, something unheard of in the Baptist church I was raised in. 

Practically everything shuts down here on those days (the Saturday in between being a normal day), especially all the stores – meaning you need to do some strategic grocery shopping if you want to make it from Thursday to the following Tuesday without resorting to an emergency run to the local gas station for milk or ketchup.  Or mämmi. 

Mämmi served with milk.

Mämmi is a dessert eaten only at Easter and most likely only in Finland and Sweden, and it has a distinctly ugly appearance that makes it the butt of quite a few jokes.  A thick, dark, pudding-like concoction made of malt, rye flour and molasses, mämmi is not the most appealing dessert you’ll ever see, but it is fact quite tasty.  Personally, though, I prefer the other Easter dessert, paskha, a white frothy custard introduced to Finland by the Russian Orthodox Church.  Still, the most popular Easter sweet has to be chocolate.  My favorite is the Mignon chocolate egg, produced only at Easter and as far as I know nowhere else than Finland.  The unique thing about this treat is that it’s a real, intact eggshell – filled with chocolate – that you peel as you would any hard-boiled egg. 

Being such a long holiday, Easter is a popular time for Finns to make a quick trip somewhere with the family.  We’ve occasionally used the four-day weekend for trips to Lapland, where there’s often still plenty of snow for some late-season skiing.  I have friends who are doing that right now, though as late (and warm) as Easter is this year, I have to think the skiing might be a little dodgy right now, even that far north. 

The presence of snow on the ground is just another difference between the holiday here the Easters of my youth in Georgia.  When our children were young, they did their Easter egg hunting inside the house for the simple reason that searching for chocolate eggs in the snow outside just isn’t all that fun, or challenging.  They tend to stand out against all that white snow.  Another difference is the trick-or-treating that takes place on Palm Sunday, when children – mostly girls – dress as witches to go door-to-door exchanging decorated pussy-willow switches for candy.  The connection between this and the crucifixion of Jesus still escapes me.  But, then again, you can say the same about the Easter Bunny and dyed hard-boiled eggs. 

Mignon chocolate egg starting to hatch.
Photo by Tiia Monto.

Even in secular Finland, Easter does also have a religious side.  It might be one of the few times during the year that many people actually step into a church, though based on the televised service I saw on Friday, it’s not anything like at capacity crowds.  The Orthodox church – which, to be honest, tends to exhibit a bit more flair than the Lutherans do – makes the celebration more participatory.  Part of the Orthodox Easter ritual is for the entire congregation to chant and bear lit candles as they follow their priest in a procession circling the church several times.  It can be quite a spectacle, though I have to confess I’ve only seen it on TV occasionally.  In my family, we have concentrated only on the cocoa- and sugar-based rituals of what is a thankfully long holiday. 

Happy Easter, everyone!