This weekend we celebrated Midsummer, our biggest national holiday after Christmas.
The village I live in has a very active local community that, among other things, arranges a huge annual Midsummer celebration. They didn’t do anything in 2020-21 due to the pandemic, but this year it was decided the party was ON. Our closest neighbours are very involved in the planning and asked us if we wanted to help out as well. An opportunity we jumped on immediately!
Living in a small village means living in a tight-knit community where everyone knows everyone and probably has for generations. So it’s important for newcomers like us (we moved here in August last year) to step up and make an effort. To show everyone that we’re nice, friendly, normal (well… *cough*), and helpful. I’m very happy they reached out and asked us!
Since I know my way around InDesign and have access to printers I ended up making all the flyers and posters. I also baked some cookies for the cookie buffet. Markus helped set up tables and booths and stuff.
On the actual day, we also helped with the games. There were a bunch of carnival-type games, like throwing darts and balls, lotteries, and a roulette game where people won chocolate (I was in charge of that). There were also ponies for the kids to ride.
I was honestly amazed at how many people showed up. Must’ve been a couple hundred guests in total! There were people coming from all over, not just from our village. Many tourists too. Everyone seemed to have a good time. 😊
Dancing around the leaf dick maypole must be one of the funniest/weirdest traditions we have. And the song they’re singing is about little frogs. No, it doesn’t make sense to us either. Nobody I’ve asked has any idea why we do this. 😅
After the official celebration was over we helped put everything away and then went home to have dinner. We have a friend we rarely see who live in another town and it has become tradition that he visits us for Midsummer.
Our dinner was very traditional:
- A few different types of pickled herring (the weird shit we do with fish in this country…)
- Boiled potatoes
- Sour cream and chives
- Pie made with Västerbotten cheese
- Tunnbröd, a thin white crispbread
- And of course: strawberry and cream layer cake for dessert
We spent the evening eating, drinking, and playing games. And watching the new The Boys episode! I’m obsessed with that show, but it’s a topic for another post.
I had a great day, and it was especially fun getting to experience the village celebration. Now it feels like summer is officially started! 🌞🌿
Maypole dancing was not what I was expecting, which was something similar to the British-style of dancing (with ribbons from the top of the maypole). Lovely celebrations to have and they must be so special now that you are a part of the community.