A Swedish weekend :)

Carbon

Elemental Madness
So I thought I would share my fun weekend mostly because I know there are some Swedish members on the forum. So my uncle recently married my new aunt who's whole family is Swedish. Combined they have 5 kids and love to have parties and gatherings. Anyway, they invited me this weekend to their mid-summer solstice party which apparently is a big thing in Sweden. Her relatives were there and I didn't know half of the stuff they were saying, but it was fun anyway. They had a May-pole which was sorta awkward(if you know what it is) for a modestly raised American. We had a great weekend though.

To all Swedish members: did you have one of these recently too?
 

colorex

Rotor Riot!
Mentor
Summer solstice - the sun doesn't go down at all, just goes around the sky.

The maypole and the dancing has a non-christian origin - so I don't do that even if I'm Swedish. But staying up with light all night is cool :)

midsommar_42770852.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer
 

pgerts

Old age member
Mentor
Andre is not all wrong ;-)
En Denmark it is St Johannes (The baptizer) who is celebrated with fires. The date is the evening of the 23rd june. It was the same in sweden until it changed to the friday closest to the date.
The sun goes down a short while unless you live above the arctic circle - probably about 1% of the Swedish population lives there.
The Germans did a commercial about the swedish midsummer and IKEA - but it was banned -
 

PaulT

New member
Mentor
That's the first time I've seen the Ikea film!! This is what the town just over the valley looks like every weekend!!:eek: