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zinnithIn my country we celebrate summer by erecting phallic symbols and pretending to be little frogs.
I began the day by skipping around in my little summer dress, picking wild flowers. Unfortunately, I looked like a moron and my hip hurt (wtf hip?) so I skipped the skipping and settled for just picking flowers.
Time for lunch. This is a Swedish speciality - picked herring. It's good, I swear!
Pickled herring tastes best when eaten with new potatoes, a little sourcream and some bread and cheese. Yum! Other dishes included spinach pie, smoked salmon, and meatballs and sausages. For dessert we had rhubarb meringue pie. Yum times ten!
After lunch we were all full and drowsy and decided to work off a few calories with a friendly game of kubb. I love this game! I also managed to catch my Grandmother on photo. Yay for Gran!
Time for the most important part of the Midsummer celebration - erecting the Maypole! This is one of the less subtle phallic symbols in the Swedish culture. It's customary for the village's 'strong men' to erect the pole. Of course, me being me, I couldn't resist helping and was called 'masculine woman' for my troubles. I love to invoke fear of (symbolic) castration in middle-aged men!
Behold - the giant cock is standing upright! Now the dancing can commence.
The folk dance team. It takes a real man to wear tight, knee-long pants. They even have a practical little flap in the front! (The pants, not the men.)
And then everyone else gets to join in the dance around the enormous penis substitute. Yes, this is actually a family-friendly holiday.
Apparently, little frogs are fun to look at because they don't have ears and tails. I think it's more fun to look at the grown men and women who are jumping around a pole, imitating said little frogs. We Swedes are a strange people.
A fun little piece of history. This is the old village stocks. It used to be outside the church, and various miscreants were locked into it when they had done things the church didn't agree with.
After all that excitement we went back home to enjoy another very Swedish thing - my mother's sandwich layer-cake. Basically, it's just a huge sandwich with so much filling you have to eat it with a knife and fork. Yum again!
And then it's time to wander off into the sunset...
Fun stuff to do on Midsummer's Eve's night:
* Pick seven (or nine) different kinds of wild flowers. Put them underneath your pillow and you will dream of the one you'll marry.
* Find a well. Walk backwards naked around it and then look into it. The person you see in the water is the one you'll marry.
* If you're already married, or doesn't want to get married, you can also inbibe lots and lots of alcohol, sing songs and fight mosquitoes. Or, you can do what I'm doing, post lame things on LJ.
Happy Midsummer's Eve everyone!
I began the day by skipping around in my little summer dress, picking wild flowers. Unfortunately, I looked like a moron and my hip hurt (wtf hip?) so I skipped the skipping and settled for just picking flowers.
Time for lunch. This is a Swedish speciality - picked herring. It's good, I swear!
Pickled herring tastes best when eaten with new potatoes, a little sourcream and some bread and cheese. Yum! Other dishes included spinach pie, smoked salmon, and meatballs and sausages. For dessert we had rhubarb meringue pie. Yum times ten!
After lunch we were all full and drowsy and decided to work off a few calories with a friendly game of kubb. I love this game! I also managed to catch my Grandmother on photo. Yay for Gran!
Time for the most important part of the Midsummer celebration - erecting the Maypole! This is one of the less subtle phallic symbols in the Swedish culture. It's customary for the village's 'strong men' to erect the pole. Of course, me being me, I couldn't resist helping and was called 'masculine woman' for my troubles. I love to invoke fear of (symbolic) castration in middle-aged men!
Behold - the giant cock is standing upright! Now the dancing can commence.
The folk dance team. It takes a real man to wear tight, knee-long pants. They even have a practical little flap in the front! (The pants, not the men.)
And then everyone else gets to join in the dance around the enormous penis substitute. Yes, this is actually a family-friendly holiday.
Apparently, little frogs are fun to look at because they don't have ears and tails. I think it's more fun to look at the grown men and women who are jumping around a pole, imitating said little frogs. We Swedes are a strange people.
A fun little piece of history. This is the old village stocks. It used to be outside the church, and various miscreants were locked into it when they had done things the church didn't agree with.
After all that excitement we went back home to enjoy another very Swedish thing - my mother's sandwich layer-cake. Basically, it's just a huge sandwich with so much filling you have to eat it with a knife and fork. Yum again!
And then it's time to wander off into the sunset...
Fun stuff to do on Midsummer's Eve's night:
* Pick seven (or nine) different kinds of wild flowers. Put them underneath your pillow and you will dream of the one you'll marry.
* Find a well. Walk backwards naked around it and then look into it. The person you see in the water is the one you'll marry.
* If you're already married, or doesn't want to get married, you can also inbibe lots and lots of alcohol, sing songs and fight mosquitoes. Or, you can do what I'm doing, post lame things on LJ.
Happy Midsummer's Eve everyone!
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-20 09:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 09:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-20 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 09:41 am (UTC)Happy Midsummer!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 01:28 am (UTC)I still don't know why that song even exists, but there you go. We didn't so much erect a maypole as watch my parents and their friends play a "friendly" game of... um, brännboll while being completely sloshed. Good times!
Glad midsommar!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-21 09:43 am (UTC)