"A Midsummer Nights Dream" by Mendelssohn

Today it’s Midsummer Eve.

If you don’t know that I’m almost 100% sure you’re not Swedish and almost as sure that you don’t know any Swedish people at all…
Midsummer Eve is so much more the national day of Sweden in every aspect than the 6th of June that it is almost ridiculous.
It’s the only day of the year when every Swede does almost the same thing…and that the whole world doesn’t do these very same things at the same time (like, for instance, Christmas).

So what do we do?

We wear chaplets of flowers on our heads while we take two sticks and bind them together like a cross. Then we attach leafs and flowers to the cross so it looks nice and green, hang two wreaths of flowers on it, and then we rise the cross and…
Voilá!
A maypole!
Then we dance around it and sing songs about walking around it, carousels and about little frogs (while we jump and sound like frogs too).

We eat loads of pickled herring, new potatoes, sour cream & chives, barbecue, and of course litres and litres of (Swedish) strawberries…and then we drink schnapps…and beer. A lot.

We get together with or friends and decorate our houses with Swedish flags, ox-eye daisies and cornflowers, and we play out-door games. There are also different places (like Dalarna, Öland, the West coast archipelago, or any "little red summer cabin with white corners by a lake in the woods") were it is supposed to be more "Midsummerish" to be.

...and then we obsess about the weather for weeks in advance because it HAS to be sunny and warm on Midsummer since it is absolutely necessary to eat outside!!

This is really one of the best traditions I know.
Happy Midsummer Eve all!!

Keep readin’
Tomorrow’s a new day and a new song.

Song of Today: "A Midsummer Nights Dream" by Mendelssohn