Caillou & Mom's Corner

Jan 11, 2010

Tack så mycket!    Thank you so much!

4 months w/ lots of stuffed animals from Auntie Anna in Sweden

liten frukt bok / small fruit book

LEGO leksak / LEGO toy

bilderbok / picture books

Caillou tycka mycket om dessa bok. 

Children English Dictionary A-Z

My First Swedish-English Dictionary with Stickers

Jultomten och Ängel / Santa (Father Christmas) & Angels

intressant sagobok med CD / interesting story-book with CD

What a nice lady! Anna knows we couldn’t read Swedish, so she also sent us the same book in English.  What’s the Swedish one for?     Of course, for experiencing the beautiful language.

Dancing Around the Midsummer Pole

(CD with 16 dancing games)

MIDSUMMER：A Swedish celebration of light and nature

Midsummer, a very old pagan celebration, is held in the beginning of summer, when the sun never sets in northern Sweden and there are only a few hours of night in the south.

In pre-Christian times, people raised a staff called amajstång, decorated with leaves and flowers, to guarantee a good harvest. Traditionally, Swedes celebrated Midsummer on June 24, St. John’s Day; today it is the weekend closest to June 24 and it is a national holiday.

           The Midsummer festivities were brought to Sweden from Germany , as many other traditions were, as early as the 1400s. the first celebrations were in towns and manors outside cities. The tradition quickly spread to the countryside, as it was a spectacular event that was easy to organize. Very often there were competitions among the villages for the best decorated majstång,. Although majstång, is often translated as maypole, it does not refer to the month of May. Instead, the word is formed from the verb ‘maja’ which means ‘to decorate.’ The maypole is decorated with flowers, greenery and sometimes also paper decorations.

           Today Midsummer is celebrated all over Sweden . Swedes who spend the holiday in a city center may feel rather lonely because most Swedes want to be in the countryside with their families and friends to celebrate.

           Swedes who live in a suburb usually have a neighborhood celebration, meeting on someone’s lawn or meadow in the morning to decorate the maypole with wild flowers and leafy branches that the neighbors have gathered. The highlight comes in the afternoon, when a group of people—most often men—dressed in traditional folk costumes raise the maypole to the accompaniment of fiddle music. That beautiful sight is followed by the traditional ring dance and singing games. At the end of the day it is time for the adults to enjoy themselves. They get together in someone’s garden or on a deck to eat traditional Midsummer foods.

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