MIDSUMMER CELEBRATION

This traditional midsummer festival is usually celebrated in the week of June 19–25th in Sweden. The event is considered to be one of the most essential holidays of the year for the Swedish.

People get the chance to gather with their families, relatives, neighbours and friends to greet midsummer. Most people travel to bays on the coast or drive to summer houses to relax and enjoy the day outside with their loved ones.

Although it is a very old festival, modern Swedes continue to carry on this tradition. Tall, wooden maypoles are erected and decorated with colourful flowers. From the youngest to the oldest, people sing and dance around it. Some of them even wear their traditional clothes for this seasonal celebration. Afterwards, they continue the day by eating pickled herring; marinated fish while sipping a spicy drink.

There is a belief that if a single girl picks seven different types of flowers that day and puts them under her pillow, she can see the man she is going to marry in her dream that night.