Midsummer is the unofficial Swedish National Day, a holy tradition! Swedes never miss it.

We start the day picking flowers, lots of them! When we have enough we dress the may pole and put them in our hair. We eat a lunch of potatoes, eggs and pickled herring (inlagd sill) with some snaps. Then we raise the may pole and dance around it like frogs, sing songs about washing clothes and playing violin. You might think that this is for the kids, but no. All adults want to join, sometimes even more than the kids.

When the dancing is over we enjoy some swedish fika with strawberry cake and saft (sweetened fruit beverage that you mix with water) or coffee. You might think that the childish part of this day is over, but the high intake of sweets and snaps now gets to us and we feel like playing all kinds of silly games. I guarantee that you will not go through this day without laughter.

When the evenings arrive we usually enjoy a nice barbeque. While you wait for the delicious food to get ready, make sure you take a walk to pick some more flowers. 7 to be exact. The legend says that if you pick 7 different flowers and climb over 7 different gärdesgådar (an old kind of fence made by sticks from trees) you will dream of the person you will marry. Gärdesgårdar is hard to find nowadays so just climb over any kind of fence and have enough faith.