Midsummer Eve

[Guffe]

Tonight is a festivity in Finland called midsummer. It's a time in our country when the sun is visible on the sky the longest, which in turn means it never sets, it's visible for 24hours. Or it would be, would it not be for the clouds and rain.

This is usually celebrated by large amounts of alcohol and barbeque. This year though I'm working, all weekend, so nothing like this for me. Most friends have already sent me pictures of beercans and their food (it's barely noon) via Whatsapp to tease me.

Do you have any traidtion like this in your country? I believe this festivity is a leftover from the times of the Vikings so I'd believe Sweden, Norway and Denmark at least have the same/similar festive thing going? How about the rest, you have an extra Holiday or have you ever even heard about something like this?

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

They do something similar in most of Alaska on the first day of summer, especially above the arctic circle where the sun doesn't go down for a full 24 hours or so. Most of the rest of the US doesn't really celebrate this, and it's generally something you won't find in places below the arctic circle, because the longest day of the year most places the sun still comes up and goes down in one day. Days like those for us here in the US are more like Independence day(July 4th), the usual thing that goes along with the barbecue and drinking is lots of screwing around with fireworks, usually in most places in the States involving illegal fireworks in those locales. Personally I love bottle rockets on the fourth, because you can just spend hours launching them off one right after another, and they often malfunction which makes them interesting.