While looking outside at all the snow and going on the -14C temperatures it might not be overly apparent, but spring is here in Finland. And with that, comes the wonderful Easter tradition of Virpoa, which is kind of like trick and treat without all the sluttiness of adults involved.
The door to door (of friends and family usually) is done on the Sunday before Easter, and before that, the children have to collect and decorate pussy willow to exchange for treats. Since Smallsteps can't eat most of the treat stuff, her family give her things like a coloring in book, or a book to read. instead - which I prefer for her, considering "sweet tooth" runs heavily on my side of the family.
There wasn't much willow around our area, so the grandparents ended up finding some around theirs, but it took them a while on their afternoon walk to collect enough so that everyone we will visit will get one per family at least.
The decoration isn't anything to write home about, but it is fun to do with the kids, using feathers and pipe cleaners, ribbons and stick-on jewels to bling them out a bit. It is funny that I reckon my wife gets into it more than Smallsteps, which is testament to human nature being creators, and how little most of us actually do to satisfy our core needs in this area.
And for Smallsteps, after a few sticks were decorated, she got more preoccupied making stuff out of the pipe cleaners instead. Which is fine of course, because that is fun too. I don't expect a six year old to have too much staying power in their attention, which is also why people should look seriously at how still children sit whilst watching digital screens - it is unnatural. But you know, people do what people do and like me, believe what they believe.
And, after about an hour of decoration and talking to 
Oh, the other part of the tradition is that the kids dress up as "witches" but not of the Halloween sort, more like rosy-cheeked characters from a 1950s kids book, using clothes from around the house. It is cute, but unfortunately this is changing here too under the influence of US culture, so kids are dressing up in crap bought from the stores, like superheroes and silly masks.
I wonder how long it will be until the adults get in on the act and start using it as an excuse to dress in the most inappropriate outfit they can find, and get ridiculously drunk.
If I was 25 years younger.... it might be fun.
Taraz
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