Swedish Midsommar: Guests in both houses, flowers, sun, good food and a long table with family and friends and kids laughing and playing in and around the pool. That’s how we imagined this wonderful feast should be. Yes we know, the weather is mostly terrible on the actual midsommarday, and family is not always around. But this year our perfect picture as we had it in my mind became reality.
Midsommar is one of this country’s biggest feasts. It celebrates the longest days of the year (between June 19 and June 25), in which the sun doesn’t set in the far north. It’s a time you wake up at 3.30 in the morning and the sun is shining and you can hear the chirping of birds and you think: nooooo, is it really so early! (Will we Dutchies ever get used to that?) In the north the sun doesn’t even set at all these days. Midsommar is celebrated in every town and village here in the area in a very traditional way. It starts with raising maypoles, dancing around it, make wreaths of one of the many flowers that grow here at the end of June, eat lots of strawberries, visit family and friends in one of the many summer holiday houses (stugas) and have that big midsommarmeal together. Briefly said: enjoying each other and the nature, the smallest things are often the best.
This year it was extra nice that (besides our own family and friends) we had many nice guests at Näsets Marcusgård too. Isn’t it great that we can all have our own midsommar activities at the farm without bothering each other? Next year it might be you that will celebrate this wonderful feast here. All houses at our farm have their own private space (ours too) and a well equipped kitchen to cook a fine midsommar meal in. You can pick herbs for your potato salad from the blue planting boxes (on the grass in front of the pool). And you’ll find tons of flowers around here to make yourself a big bouquet to put on the table or to put as a wreath on your head. While you are having your meal, the kids enjoy themselves in the pool. Depending upon the date of arrival we’ll take care of a real midsommar cake. Yes, we can arrange many things, except the weather! We promise you: if it’s going to be like this next year, it’ll be a picture perfect. Try it for yourself, the next feast is in August when we are celebrating the end of the summer with a crayfish party.