Swedish midsummer

We arrived in Sweden Thursday morning. The eldest son met us at the airport together with his girlfriend and our car. It took us about six hours to get to Nyttorp, our summer cottage. The youngest son had prepared supper. Traditional, Swedish Thursday menu: Yellow Peas Soup with mustard and thyme, warm Swedish Punch, and pancakes. Nice! The parents in law were also there to greet us. And the nice, warm, light Nordic summer night.

It's about 9 pm and more than an hour to sunset

Midsummer Eve is one of the most traditional, cultural feasts we have in Sweden. We were invited to my wife’s sister and our brother in law. On our way to Öland, where they live, we met some heavy rains, but at noon the sky was clear and we could sit down and enjoy the typical dishes: pickled herring, eggs, potatoes of the first harvest with butter etc. With that we enjoyed some traditional songs accompanying the drinking of the compulsory shots. In Sweden the liquor traditionally was produced from potatoes. To make it drinkable it was spiced up with different herbs. It is rather strong, so one should not consume too much. (But many Swedes do drink heavily this weekend.)

The midsummer pole is also a must. The symbolic meaning is a combination of the male phallus as a sign of fruitfulness and a way of connecting the earth to heaven. It used to be just a pole but we believe that, with the introduction of Christianity in Sweden, the pole became a cross with leaves and flowers. We had a very small one this year. It is sometimes five meters high or even more. When we it is risen we dance traditional dances. We almost forgot it this year but my father in law, 89 years, started himself when nobody else did. He began with the traditional: “The small frogs are funny to watch” and started to imitate a frog. We all joined in and felt: now it is midsummer.

In the evening we drove back to Kalmar to fetch the youngest daughter. She has lived in the States almost two years and it was a joy to meet her. (Don’t worry – the wife had abstained from the shots and was totally sober!) With us were the parents in law. When the wife brought them home the daughter and I remained at the railway station. She was hungry and got money from her mother to buy something to eat. When she was about to pay she found out that her mother had given her South African Rand instead of Swedish money. We promised to wait in the shop until the mother and accurate money returned and the daughter could start eating. So there we stood the daughter almost two years in the States, the father after half a year in South Africa and in came a friend from Azerbaijan and said, with his broken Swedish:

Welcome home to Sweden!

We spent the night on Öland, which is the second biggest island in Sweden and attended church there in the morning before returning to the summer cottage. With the three youngest children and one of their spouses we relaxed and just enjoyed the afternoon.

Sunday morning we went to the church in Ålem where the wife used to work as Parish Educator and people were really surprised to see her. The priest even had to comment it in his sermon, which was very good. It was the day of St. John the Baptist and the sermon was prophetic. I liked it and especially one of his punch lines, after having argued that the Christian faith has something to do with socio-political realities:

The gospel and God’s grace do not exist in a separate swimming pool with some special, spiritual water.

This wonderful midsummer weekend we ended in the soccer stadium where Kalmar and Helsingborg played. 1-1. A very good result because the brother in law was born in Helsingborg.

 Kalmar FF, the team in red, prepares itself for the match.