The first person to ask us “What will you do for midsommar?” was a waitress in Stockholm on our third day. It sounded like meed-sume-AR and I had her repeat it a few times until I realized she was saying mid-summer, as in summer solstice, one of my favorite days of the year. (I used to throw summer solstice parties back in my single days and still mention it to the kids each year, sometimes making a fun dinner or letting them stay up extra late.)

I knew we’d be in Sweden for summer solstice and expected lots of light–indeed, the sun “sets” at 10:00 pm and “rises” at 3:30 am, the sky fully dark from about 12:00-3:00 am– but I didn’t know it was a national holiday.

“What will you do?” we asked her back.

“I’ll get drunk on snaps and eat pickled herring in the small town where I’m from,” she laughed.

That was it. Right then I decided that, on midsommar, which would be exactly a week from our arrival, I too, would drink snaps (what are snaps?) and eat pickled herring.

As we heard more about midsommar with each passing day, I got a better picture of the festivities. Most people said it was the biggest holiday in Sweden after Christmas. One couple told us it was bigger than Christmas.

In addition to the food and drink (traditionally sill (pickled herring), potatoes, and snaps (a flavored shot of alcohol) ), it’s about people enjoying the outdoors together with lawn games, music, dancing, flower crowns, and the construction of the midsommar pole, which is like the summer version of a Christmas Tree, a triangle-tipped cross covered with ivy and flowers with two rings hanging on each side of the horizontal strip. (More than one Swede explained that the phallic nature of the pole is not unintentional and at least one mentioned something about fertility…)

The day before midsommar we toured a palace and the staff was preparing the lawn for their upcoming celebration. When we wondered if we would find the same kind of party at the next day’s campground, they said, “Of course. There will be midsommar celebrations wherever you are.”

Sure enough, our campground just outside the small town of Trosa had posters up listing the day’s events (this is a very rough translation based on observation rather than language):

• 11:00 construction and erection of the pole
• 11:30 making of the flower crowns
• 14:30 music and dancing around the pole
• 15:00 games on the beach
• 21:00 evening party and dance

The only things missing were food and drink. This holiday is so big that the grocery stores were closed, even if we knew what we were supposed to be buying. We went into town to find a restaurant serving a midsommar menu but of the two we found, one had just stopped serving for the day and the other was booked through the next. We ended up at a spot that served bad pasta and lousy wine. When we returned to camp and mentioned to our tent neighbors that we were looking forward to trying the traditional food, they gave us an extra can of mustard sill, which we paired with some Wasa crackers and headed to the camp bar for what we were hoping would be “strong beer.” (In Sweden, this is 5.2% rather than 2-ish%.)

 

This is when we met Yvonne and Pär, a couple from Stockholm with a camper parked at the campground that they visit on the weekends like a summer home. We couldn’t have gotten any luckier than to meet these two Swedes. They were so friendly and gracious and fun, full of life and celebration. In between jokes and laughter, they told us about their lives in Sweden, their family, their jobs, their travels. Once they heard of our disappointing search for snaps and sill, they invited our whole family to the camper to serve up the leftovers they had from the day’s celebration with their college-age children.

Even traveling with our immediate family, at times I feel we’re a little lonely and/or isolated. Perhaps this explains the instant connection I felt towards Yvonne and Pär. I felt like we were old, long friends. We sat at a table in what I describe as the Swede’s “front porch.” They all have these fabric tent rooms extending from their campers where they set up cozy, temporary living and/or dining rooms, with rugs, candles, tables, chairs, sofas.

They brought out several different kinds of sill, cream to pour on top, and Janssons frestelse, a dish of potatoes and anchovies that was one of the best combinations I’ve ever tasted. Out, too, came the “strong beer” and the snaps, shot glasses and Swedish drinking songs. The kids laid on the first couches they’ve seen since leaving the US, reading their Kindles under blankets before drifting off, as the grown-ups chatted, laughed, and sang. In campers all around us, other families were doing the same.

Since arriving in Sweden, I’d built up what I hoped for this day to be and wondered if we’d miss out on the fun. And the day of, we did run into some shortcomings and disappointments. But by the end of the day, I couldn’t have imagined a better time if I tried, all thanks to two people who took a chance with some strangers who quickly became friends.