Midsommarfest

The Midsummer party had finally arrived! Diane and I were ready with a change of clothes (in case it got cold), coffee (our party contribution), drinks and our cameras. When we first arrived, we were sent out with Lina to be on 'flower duty.' We drove down the road and picked a bunch of flowers that would be used to make the May Pole.

After meeting a lot of the guests while waiting for some food preparation, it was time for our late lunch. The spread of food was pretty amazing--Swedish meatballs, salmon, potatoes, scalloped potatoes, bread and cheeses, salmon cake (?), and something that everyone insisted we must try: pickled herring. Diane and I gulped it down and it was surprisingly not that bad.

Every place setting had a Midsommar program with all of the songs in it. Most of the songs were Swedish, but there were a few in English. I did my best to sing along. After every song we sang, we were supposed to take a shot of snaps (alcohol mixed with different flavorings). Being the Americans, we were given some pretty terrible snaps, haha, but we suffered through.

After the meal, Lina, Diane and I went out in search of flowers. Based on tradition, we had to find seven different types of flowers and then put them under our pillows when we sleep, and then we would dream of our future husbands. We also were looking for flowers and leaves for our head wreaths. Mission accomplished!

Priya and Anzo ended up making our head wreaths for us since we didn't know what we were doing. We decorated them with some of our flowers. Here is a picture of me by the Midsummer Pole with my wreath! I look so Swedish. :)

Then the games began. I was teamed up with Lina and we went around answering questions about people. The questions were pretty funny and included everyone at the party. The one that I was in was "Who has the best lips?" and pitted me against Diane. Every team filled out its choices, and then there were competitions to find out the answers. For the question "Who is Mr. Handyman?" the guys had to nail three nails into a piece of wood. For the questions "Who is the chatterbox?", Lina and Anzo had to play "Fluffy Bunny" on stage with marshmallows! For our question, Diane and I had to eat a long stringy candy without using our hands. It was pretty funny. I ended up winning, but Lina and I had listed Diane...oops, lost my team the point. The tally of correct guesses was later calculated, and Lina and I got second with 4 points.

It was at this point that I realized that Midsummer is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. We had some down time, but that was broken up with May Pole dancing. I followed along with the dances, and my favorite one was the little frog dance where we hopped around.

After another hour or so, (around 11pm), the guys grilled the meat we had brought and we had another meal with potato salad. It was pretty darn delicious. I was exhausted and we wrapped up the evening hanging out inside. I made sure to put the flowers under my pillow when I got home, but whether I dreamt of my future husband will remain a mystery...

It was a wonderful first Midsummer, and I just wish the US had a similar holiday. So much fun!