From Peaches to Vikings; My Adventures in Sweden: Midsummer

Midsummer in Sweden is possibly the biggest holiday, after Christmas. Midsummer celebrates the beginning of summer and the longest day of sunlight ( after midsummer the days with only get darker sooner). The Swedes celebrate midsummer by dancing around the maypole, signing, drinking schnapps, making flower crowns, and eating some more.....traditional food, oh and strawberries - its not summer in Sweden without strawberries. Midsummer is really only celebrated in the countryside, so lucky for me living in the countryside all I had to do was step out my front door and midsummer was all around.

And one thing that I thought was really neat was in the village I live in they had....sort of a small parade. They had people playing the accordion, carrying flags, people dressed in traditional clothing, then after them followed the tractors that they decorated carrying people - just anyone who wanted to ride into the gamlagården where the majstången (maypole) and the celebration took place. We watched as they decorated the pole with flowers and greenery then raised it up (which looked very difficult). After that they asked the children and parents (and Bryana) to make two rings around the pole and we performed a bunch of dances to some short songs. It was sort of similar to line dancing, where the songs tell you how you should dance. It was a lot of fun. However, I was seriously disappointed because I had only learned one song before hand - the song my host family said was the most common, "classic midsummer song" its called "små grodorna" (small frogs) but we went to two of these maypole dance things and they never played små grodorna.

We were also fortunate enough to see a group of folk dancers from Estonia - they were really talented! And after they performed the announcer gave a short speech on how important it was to see other dances from different cultures....so I thought I should start tweaking....you know to share my culture, but I decided against it.

In addition, my host family had several large meals with our neighbor's family. However, it was mostly sill (I think its herring) and potatoes. The food was very similar to christmas food....and Easter food. Fish, more fish, lots of dill, meatballs, korv (sausage), and potatoes. And we also grilled for one meal (chicken and moose meat) which, in my opinion, is another sign of summer in Sweden.

Then, later that night my host sister and I went out and picked seven different types of flowers, tied them together with ribbon and then put them under our pillows on midsummers eve. Swedish folklore claims that if you do this you will dream about your future husband.....however, it didn't work for us, we must have picked the wrong flowers.

I also got to see my contact people again one more time, they own a summer house in Dala-Husby (my village) so I went and visited them for a while, they are really great people. And they even gave me a felt blanket that has the Swedish flag printed on it. Score! I was so thankful too, because it was a very cold and windy midsummer. It has been like that these last couple of weeks (its been in like the 50s) which for a Georgia girl such as myself is very very strange.

Overall it really was a magical experience, it was one of the things I was really looking forward to when I found out I would be going to Sweden. And I was not disappointed.

If you want to know more about how Swedes celebrate midsummer then I would suggest this video, its entertaining.