Easter is upon us and that is a big deal in Denmark. We not only have Friday and Monday off but also Thursday. And the Danes have a wonderful tradition to go with it, namely the “gækkebrev”. This is an anonymous letter you send before Good Friday to a family member or a friend who then has to guess – before Easter is over – who the sender is. If they guess it’s you, you owe them an Easter egg. If not, then they owe you an Easter egg.
I was told about this tradition back in September by my Danish neighbour – who probably forgot all about that conversation – so gues
s who I’ve sent a “gækkebrev” this year! You basically take a piece of paper and cut out various pieces to make a nice pattern (remember to leave a place for your message – I kind of forgot that as you can see…), and I googled a bit more to find a Danish verse to put on it. Normally you are supposed to sign it with the number of dots that corresponds to your name, but I didn’t do that because I am pretty sure I made a spelling mistake when adjusting the verse – and probably the way I wrote the “æ” also gives me away!
So let’s see if I get an extra Easter egg this year!