Festivities: Christmas, Easter, Midsummer
What makes Finland special? The only way you can really find out is by coming to visit. Time your trip for one of the annual festive periods and you'll get a taste of a uniquely Finnish atmosphere. Your chances of a white Christmas, for instance, are good in Finland, and it's an especially cosy time of the year, no matter how cold it is outside. Midsummer, on the other hand, is more expansive celebration of abundant daylight, a time to relax at a water-side cottage or forest retreat, sampling the invigorating national sauna-bathing ritual.
Christmas
Christmas is probably the most important holiday season in Finland, but it is a quiet festivity. People like to spend time with their families, with good food in good company. The Christmas holiday is celebrated over three days. The big day is Christmas Eve (December 24), when Finns eat Christmas dinner, Santa Claus pays a visit, and people open their presents. Christmas Day is a time of peace and quiet with the family, and people visit friends and neighbors on Boxing Day.
Easter
Easter in Finland is a peaceful religious holiday celebrated among family and friends. This is the main religious holiday of the year at Orthodox cathedrals.
This is also the time of year when people are eagerly awaiting the first signs of spring. Depending on whether the holiday is in March or April, the first crocuses may already be blooming. People try to help the spring along. They grow grass in dishes on the windowsill. On Palm Sunday, children go from door to door reciting a rhyme wishing health during the coming year. They give decorated willow sticks in exchange for candy.
There are a few traditional Easter foods. People decorate Easter eggs, of course. And you might be offered a traditional dish in the form of malt porridge, or ‘mämmi', served with cream and sugar. It's not the world's prettiest dish, but many people try it once and like it forever.
Easter in Finland is a peaceful religious holiday celebrated among family and friends. This is the main religious holiday of the year at Orthodox cathedrals.
This is also the time of year when people are eagerly awaiting the first signs of spring. Depending on whether the holiday is in March or April, the first crocuses may already be blooming. People try to help the spring along. They grow grass in dishes on the windowsill. On Palm Sunday, children go from door to door reciting a rhyme wishing health during the coming year. They give decorated willow sticks in exchange for candy.
There are a few traditional Easter foods. People decorate Easter eggs, of course. And you might be offered a traditional dish in the form of malt porridge, or ‘mämmi', served with cream and sugar. It's not the world's prettiest dish, but many people try it once and like it forever.
Midsummer
It's called Midsummer, but it's really the beginning of summer. Last week there was freezing rain in Lapland; next week everyone will be on holiday. Midsummer is when families go the summer cottage to spend a month by the lake or the sea. They celebrate Juhannus - or St. John's Day - with a bonfire on the shore.
People place two young birch trees on either side of the front door to welcome visitors. They heat up the sauna and make a sauna whisk out of birch twigs. And they hoist the flag at 6 pm on Midsummer Eve and fly it all night until 9 pm the following evening.
And when a young woman picks seven different kinds of wildflowers and puts them under her pillow on Midsummer Eve, she will dream about her future husband.
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Cherry Lane, a Jamaican disco star from the 80's, sings a song for Santa Claus.
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