A tree unlike any other is growing in southern Minot.
This tree, however, isn't outside. It is inside. It isn't coming from the ground, but instead sits in a purple pail next to the television in Robert Soderstrom and Ila Lovdahl's living room.
Constructed out of twigs, the tree is festooned with different colored feathers and egg-shaped decorations hanging from its branches.
Too sparse of foliage and four months late, it can't be a Christmas tree. What the heck is it?
Meet the Easter tree, and in the Swedish tradition, the vibrant colors and use of nature help usher in springtime.
"It kind of looks like a 'Mardi Gras tree,' " Lovdahl said, as she observed the tree in her living room on Wednesday. "It's gaudy, but it's cheerful."
Traditionally, live birch branches are used, but in this case, Soderstrom used dead branches probably oak or cottonwood, he said he found in Oak Park. With the live branches, the buds grow, which help to show that spring has sprung.
Colored feathers are usually tied to the ends of the branches. The feathers represent brushing the season to spring to hasten its arrival "to wake people up that spring is here," Lovdahl said. The bright colors also help to welcome the season, she added.
While the spring season officially started last month, the remaining snow on the ground and the foreboding forecasts for the future belies what the calendar states, so their Easter tree couldn't come soon enough.
Soderstrom grew up in Salt Lake City, far away from the motherland. He was a second-generation American, his grandfather having moved to the United States in 1910. Growing up, he was raised in a Norwegian/Swedish household that was fairly traditional. There was always a plate of fattigman, or "poor man's cookies," on the table at Christmas. He had overheard his grandparents talking about their homeland, but it wasn't until 1992 when Soderstrom, his brother and their father ventured to Sweden. They went on a search for family and on the last day of their trip, they reconnected with a cousin and had "a good reunion." Soderstrom and Lovdahl now go to Sweden every other year and sometimes his Swedish cousins come to Minot to visit.
It was during one of these trips that Soderstrom learned of the Easter tree.
"We learned about it from our relatives in Sweden," said Soderstrom. "We didn't bring it up until we brought it up at the Scandinavian Heritage Center."
Figuring that it was Easter, it would be something that people with Swedish heritage would enjoy hearing about, Soderstrom said.
Soderstrom and Lovdahl prepared an Easter tree and brought it to the members of the Swedish Heritage Society of Northwestern North Dakota at their April 9 meeting. Soderstrom is the society's president. Of the 35 members, only one, Vicki Jones of Stanley, had heard of an Easter tree. Jones, who was born in Sweden, verified its authenticity and recalled the tree during her childhood, Lovdahl said.
"When we hear of things, we try and clear them with her," she added.
The decorations that adorn the branches were sent by Soderstrom's relatives, who live in Skane in southern Sweden. The icing on the cake are two miniature Swedish flags, which they planted at the tree's base.
"We wouldn't dare put a Norwegian flag," said Lovdahl, who is 100 percent Norwegian. Soderstrom is 50 percent Swedish and 50 percent Norwegian.
She said that recreating the Easter tree in their household is a way to bring back Soderstrom's Swedish heritage. His relatives in Sweden have applauded their efforts, sending messages that they are proud that they are spreading the culture here, Lovdahl said.
"I think it's important to remember who you are and where you came from," Lovdahl said.
Lovdahl noted that, to her knowledge, the Easter tree isn't a custom in Norway, which shows how diverse the Scandinavian cultures are from country to country.
Their home in southwestern Minot is a testimony of this belief. In the living room is the very trunk that Lovdahl's grandmother, Inga, used to carry her possessions when she traveled to the United States when she was 18 years old. On the wall in the study off the living room are plates from Sweden. Even their toothpicks have little Norwegian flags affixed to them.
According to "Watching the Swedes," an Internet blog about Swedish culture written by Neil Shipley, the Easter tree comes from the 1600s.
"Swedish people in the 1600s used to take twigs and sticks and beat each other with them on Good Friday to commemorate the suffering of Jesus," Shipley wrote. "In the 1800s and 1900s, they started to be decorated and become a symbolic decoration for Easter."
