Holidays in Sweden
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New Year's Day
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Thisday celebrated on January 1 each year.New year traditions in Sweden are constantly changing for its multicultural diversity. New Year is celebrated with fireworks, starting at 00.00 on New Year's Day, and sparkling wine and lots of snacks, usually after a shellfish dinner late on New Year's Eve.Ano Viejo is a New Year festival that is marked by festivity and fun. In this celebration an effigy of a person dressed like a scarecrow is put up. The effigy is decked with old newspapers and firecrackers. The scarecrow represents all the bad things that have happened during the last year. At midnight each family lights the dummy on fire. As the effigy is burnt the firecrackers burst out with the loud cheers and merrymaking from the crowd. In this way people bids adieu to the old year and embraces the new one.
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Epiphany
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Epiphany was traditionally a Christian feast to celebrate the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to humanity in human form, in the person of Jesus Christ.Epiphany is also referred to as the Three Kings Day or the Twelfth Day of Christmas.
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Good Friday
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Good Friday, also called Holy Friday, Great Friday or Black Friday:
is the Friday preceding Easter Sunday ("Pascha"). It commemorates the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Golgotha."In Sweden, Good Friday - as well as Easter Monday - is a national holiday. Some shops are open a few hours in the morning.
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International Workers' Day
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International Workers' Day (also known as May Day) celebrate on 1 MAy each year it is the day to celebrate the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement and left-wing movements.The main events on Mayday are political demonstrations carried out by the working class organisations and political parties historically associated with the working class movement.
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Ascension Day
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The Ascension day is one of the great feasts in the Christian liturgical calendar, and refers to the Ascension of Jesus Christ into Heaven forty days after His resurrection from the dead.Ascension Day is officially celebrated on a Thursday on the 40th day of Easter (or 39 days after Easter Sunday).The Ascension is often celebrated by getting up early in the morning (around 3 or 4 a.m.) and meeting in a forest glen to hear the birds sing at sunrise. These excursions are called gök-otta, literally "early cuckoo morning", as this is the time of year one can hear the cuckoo call.
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Whit Sunday
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Whit Sunday, or Pentecost, celebrates the visit of the Holy Spirit upon Christ's disciples. Whit Sunday is traditionally a day for picnicking. Swedes also decorate their homes with bouquets and leafy branches, although the custom is not as widespread as at Midsummer.This is the day when many young people are confirmed in the Lutheran faith. It is also the most popular date for weddings.
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National Day of Sweden
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Sweden celebrate its National Day on 6 June. This is the date on which Gustav Vasa was crowned king in 1523 and on which a new constitution was adopted in 1809. The original idea came from Artur Hazelius, who founded the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm and held a national day celebration there on 6 June as early as the 1890s.Every year, the King and Queen take part in a ceremony at Skansen, Stockholm’s open-air museum, where the yellow and blue Swedish flag is run up the mast, and children in traditional peasant costume present the royal couple with bouquets of summer flowers.
This day celebrated in the schools and with parades, speeches and brass bands in practically every town.
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Midsummer Day
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In modern Sweden, Midsummer's Eve and Midsummer's Day formerly celebrated on 23 June and 24 June, but since 1953 the celebration has been moved to the Friday and Saturday between 19 June and 26 June. It is one of the most important holidays of the year in Sweden. The main celebrations take place on the Friday, and the traditional events include raising and dancing around a huge maypole. Before the maypole is raised, greens and flowers are collected and used to cover the entire pole.Typical Midsummer menus feature different kinds of pickled herring and boiled new potatoes with fresh dill and a dessert of garden-fresh strawberries.
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All Saints' Day
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All Saints' Day celebrated on the Saturday following the 30th of October. Families lay wreaths and flowers on the graves of their loved ones. As night falls, graveyards are aglow with twinkling candles and lanterns. Popular demand for a holiday honoring the memory of departed friends and relatives grew steadily through the course of the first half of the present century.
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Christmas
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Christmas is the biggest and longest holiday of the year. Schoolchildren are on holiday for a couple of weeks. The height of the celebration is Christmas Eve, the 24th of December, followed by the two holidays Christmas Day and Boxing Day.Christmas festivities involve numerous traditional activities and attributes, the most important of which are the Christmas tree, the Christmas meal, and the visit of the Swedish tomte or Christmas gnome.By tradition Swedes attend church in the small hours of Christmas morning.
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Boxing Day
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Boxing Day takes place on December 26th and is only celebrated in a few countries. It was started in the UK about 800 years ago in the Middle Ages. It was the day when the alms box, collection boxes for the poor often kept in churches, were opened so that the contents could be distributed to poor people. Some churches still open these boxes on Boxing Day.
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