Midsommar Madness

My new favorites Swedish holiday

The Swedes apparently go a little mad for Midsommar. It marks the longest day of the year (which was actually June 21. But they celebrate the holiday Friday June 25. I’m not sure why, but I suspect it is to get a long weekend). Perhaps they love the fact that this marks the halfway point from the opposite spectrum, when the day is shortest during the winter. But it’s probably from a justified love of summer and the willingness to embrace a good holiday.

This year my brother invited us over for a cook out. He was bacheloring it, since his wife was out of town visiting her mother for the holiday. Here’s me and my Cinnamon Brother:

It is a tradition for girls to wear flowers in their hair. In fact, we saw a couple of girls when we went into the apartment building, cutting flowers from the bush outside the building and putting them in their hair. Here is our oldest Cinnamon stick talking about the tradition:

Here she is with Mrs. CB:

Gratuitous shot of my lovely wife, Mrs. Cinnamon Bun:

Our youngest decided she was not going to embrace the tradition of flower wearing. Plus she was really hungry:

I took a well deserved break from my photography:

Here we are ready to tuck into our dinner:

We had many tasty Swedish specialties, including pickled herring and other things I couldn’t possibly spell. Here’s a better shot by the lovely Mrs. CB:

The Cinnamon sticks got the impression that it was tradition to “stay up really late” on Midsommar. I will spare you any pictures of the tired Cinnamon Bun family. Now I’m enjoying a few minutes of quiet post holiday until the rest of the family wakes up:

To be continued…