On Friday all of Finland and Sweden comes to a standstill as we celebrate Midsummer’s Eve – the holiday that is almost as big as Christmas.
My family usually has no plans beforehand, but we still always end up celebrating with friends, and this year I thought it was time to dress up my mini-midsommarstång/may pole, which had become a bit too dusty and lost many ribbons during the years.
You _can_ have Midsummer’s without a midsummer pole, but why do it is what I think!
Usually we make our own pole in the garden and dress it with flowers and leaves (you can see pictures of that in my old Midsummer’s blogposts), but this year it seems as if we will be having rain and even thunder storms. I still wanted a midsummer’s pole, so this mini-pole is just perfect for the occasion. My pole is a version that you can almost find on the Åland islands, where I used to spend all my Midsummers when I was little. Other places they don’t have the square ”crowns” but instead use wreaths.
The may pole, or midsummer’s pole, is a fun quirky tradition.
We got it from the Germans, the same as with the Christmas Trees, and the may part in the name doesn’t have anything to do with the month of May, but comes from an old Germanic word meaning something like putting leaves on a thing. We have loads of these old Germanic words still left in both Swedish and English, they just look a bit different nowadays and are used a bit differently and sometimes they end up sounding like something totally different, like for example the word aftermath – the math part of the word has got nothing to do with mathematics, but probably something to do with the same old word that gave us the word may pole/majstång.
Anyways, my midsummer pole is made from just regular dowel rod which we cut some pieces out of so that they would fit together like a cross. Niklas (my husband) drilled a hole in a square piece of wood and then we glued the pieces together and painted them green.
This time I wanted to have some more colourful ribbons on my pole, plus the flags. Flags are optional, but I wanted extra everything on this pole!
I glued the ribbons to the foot of the pole and wound them around the pole. Then I did the same thing with the ”crossguard”.
I took 2 pieces of pipe cleaners and bent them so that they formed squares. I put one square inside the other so to speak, and fastened them to each other like in the picture above.
Then I took another pipe cleaner and fastened all the squares in the middle layer, so that they form a sort of diamond with 8 sides.
The ”crowns” as they are called, were hung from the pole and I glued ribbons to all of the four corners and beneath the crown.
I also added some flags. Both the Danish flag, our Finnish one and a South African Flag. The more the merrier!
That’s my midsummer pole, all finished and waiting for Midsummer’s Eve, just like I do!
Midsummer’s Eve – a day when you eat lots of fresh potatoes, pickled herrings, fresh strawberries drink some ”snaps” and then you dance around the pole and act like your frogs! A crazy, quirky tradition indeed!
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