06/19: Midsommar

Despite all the warnings: the counterfeit strawberries, the threats of terrible weather, the booze shortages ... our Midsommar turned out to be a spectacular weekend.

For those who don't know what Midsommar is:

The celebration of Midsummer's Eve was from ancient times linked to the summer solstice. People believed that mid-summer plants, especially Marigold had miraculous healing powers and they therefore picked them on this night. Bonfires were lit to protect against evil spirits which were believed to roam freely when the sun was turning southwards again. In later years, witches were also thought to be on their way to meetings with other powerful beings, though this is not the case today.

In Sweden, Mid-summer celebration originates from the time before Christianity; it was celebrated as a sacrifice time in the sign of the fertility

On Thursday evening, Pär, Ylva and Ylva's brother Björn picked us up and we went off towards the town of Askersund, which is 2 hours or so south-west of Stockholm. There we met up with Ylva's awesome parents Leif and Sonja.

After the trip we arrived at their beautiful property. Here's the view of the lake:
The next day, Midsummer's Eve (which is the day that's celebrated) we woke up and went for a walk. Here's Pär and Ylva sitting on an ant infested rock enjoying the view.

After our walk we played some kubb. Here's Courtney in action.
After we broke a sweat we went to the nearby village of Lerbäck to participate in some traditional Midsommar activities.
Here's a bunch of kids (+ Courtney and Ylva) dancing around the Midsommar pole.
Of course, all was too good to be true. A flash of lightening, a crack of thunder, and suddenly the skies opened up we were caught in an intense downpour. This however did not keep the following girls from dancing. This is a perfect example of Swedish parenting. Letting your young-uns dance around a tall pole in the middle of an empty field in the during a thunderstorm ... but that's a subject for another post.
Here's the group of us huddling under our umberellas-ellas-ellas.
After a few minutes however the rain passed.
Some traditional dancing. In case you were wondering ... you didn't really miss anything:
The Lerbäck church.
After the festivities we headed back to the cabins and had a dinner. Here's the group of us with our snaps bottles prominently displayed.
Dinner included herring, new potatoes, plenty of snaps, and of course some Swedish beer:
As you can see, the concerns of a strawberry shortage were apparently overblown.
We hung out with the crew for the rest of the long weekend. Throughout the time we had some great food, amazing wine, we played fun games and it was all in all a fantastic time.

And finally, as a final note some have asked about how dark it gets at night. The following photo of a sunrise was taken in our neighborhood at 3 am. This was taken in May, not even close to the solstice.