Midsommar!!!

Midsommar (Midsummer), for those of you who have never celebrated it before (dont worry, this was my first time too) is like the superbowl of Swedish holidays- except less greasy food and beer and more pickled herring and snaps. Our friends Pär and Ylva invited us (ok, there was some begging on our part) to spend midsommar with Ylva's family (The Schnürer's) at her family's adorable summer cabin in Åskersund (a few hours outside of Stockholm).

Midsommar is an old pagan holiday and is celebrated as a sacrifice time in the sign of the fertility. Nowadays, little kids sing and dance around a midsommar pole and then there is a traditional dinner with pickled herring, snaps and new potatoes. We went to a small village near their cabin, Lerbäck to check out the traditional festivities:



It started to thunderstorm half-way through, so we took a break:

You can see Ylva and I made the traditional head wreaths too. Normally only the little kids make the head wreaths and dance around the maypole, but I figured as a tourist, I could get away with it. After the rain stopped, we went back to dancing:


After taking in all of the traditional celebrations, we headed back to the Schnürer's to hang out in the sun and play some kubb:


One of the funniest things was that they had this cat who was enourmous- I dubbed him Fat Cat:

Later that evening we settled in for a traditional dinner with Ylva, Pär, Ylva's brother, Björn, and Ylva's parents- Sonja and Leif.

Dinner was great- lots of singing and snaps. I still think we need tradtional drinking songs in America! They are so fun!

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, playing board games (particulary Robo Rally- best game ever- even though Pär always wins) and kubb, enjoying the sun when it wasnt raining and eating a lot of really really good food.

Check out the slideshow of the weekend here.