Oh Shit! It’s Easter! (in 3 days)

If I can avoid a holiday, I will. This year I decided to – more or less – skip Easter. The kids are way too big for egg hunts and Easter bunnies.

In Seattle, we celebrated every year, but that’s because we had friends who had little kids. Seeing their sweet little faces light up every time they found a plastic egg filled with candy (or better yet, money), made all the prep work worth it. So we cleaned up the dog poop in the backyard, hid the eggs, ordered ham, baked tarts, as well as coffee cakes, and prepped mimosas. Among our family and friends, Easter has also traditionally been an excuse for daytime drinking.

But here we don’t need to do that, so I decided to just skip Easter this year. The weather is not very springlike anyway (there was a blizzard here this morning and I was advised to wear two pairs of socks because it’s freezing out there!).

So, happy not to stray far from my daily routine, I went to do some shopping for dinner tonight and discovered that…

EVERYTHING IS CLOSED!!!

Yes, four days before the actual Easter (today is Thursday), Danes like to begin their celebrations (also, technically, Easter – or Påske – is celebrated on Monday as well as Sunday). Everything, including the 24 hr grocery store down the street, is closed!!

(Luckily Dave found a shawarma place that’s open! Boy, am I glad to have Muslims living in this country.)

I have to say, I do love Denmark and its willingness to drop everything and take off for five or six days during a holiday which in the USA would be one day long. I mean, I’m not sure what we’ll be eating for the remainder of the days, but I still support it. And maybe, just maybe, I’ve learned my lesson now and will plan accordingly… next year.