Happy Juhannus(midsummer) Everyone!

[laurentius]

Happy Juhannus Everyone!

Juhannus is the name for traditional Finnish Midsummer-festival for the night without sun setting at all..

In Helsinki sun sets at 22.50 and rises at 3.54 am. In Oulu(northern Finland) sun sets at 0.21 am and rises at 2.18 am

We party all day, all night, because it never really gets dark. People just go absolutely crazy. It's the second biggest party/holiday of the year for us. How about you? How do you celebrate midsummer back home, if at all? I know at least scandinavians do.

ps, I guess I wont be sleeping much either saturday night, it helps that my biological clock usually just flips out at Juhannus

[Solver]

OK, for all the pagans who care, happy Midsummer, or happy John-day as they call it here .

[laurentius]

Hey Solver, how do you celebrate Midsummer in Latvia?

[Solver]

It's the biggest and oldest celebration here... from pagan times. They drink a lot, eat whatever the national food here is, stay up all night, and jump over fire.

I know I should know more details, but I don't... however, you get more congratulations these days than even on New Year, so it's important. In cities, all kinds of public feasts are made.

[laurentius]

Thats almost the same we do here. We eat a lot of beef and sausages, drink beer or booze, and dance around huge bonfires. Pagan ritual? Sure, of course.
I guess we have somewhat same traditions and beliefs as you do, afterall were almost neighbourgs..

[laurentius]

Here's my suggestion for this midsummers #1 song

http://koti.welho.com/hhella/Denigrate%20-%20Mombasa%20%5bfound%20via%20www.fileDonkey.com%5d.mp3

[Az]

I've sacrificed my first-born to the Molech.

[laurentius]

So, you DO have midsummer traditions in Israel too!

[Az]

Oh no. just a coinsidence. The ancient semitic calendars were lunar.

Today was "drunk orgy" day.

[laurentius]

Drunk orgy, sounds familiar

It's funny, I had this jewish australian friend of mine visiting Finland last fall. It was his first visit to Finland and we were going out to check Helsinki nightlife. Anyway, we were starting up at my friends flat, drinking mostly beer. We finns say "kippis" for cheers and as we said this our australian friend suddently started laughing his ass of. Later he explained that kippis sounded very much like australian/english expression "get pissed". Well, i think that it captures the finnish way of drinking pretty well anyway.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Solver
OK, for all the pagans who care, happy Midsummer, or happy John-day as they call it here .

Give me a Pagan over a Christian any day! At least Pagans know how to have a good time!

[Al'Kimiya]

Yeah.. dancing 'round maypoles and singing/imitating frogs

[laurentius]

Singing/imitating frogs? In israel? Man, you are weird people...
BTW Did you like the mp3?

[Spiffor]

Tomorrow evening is the Music Day in France (an as far as I heard, in other parts of the world as well). The best day of the year to spend in Paris IMHO

However, it is a very young tradition, as it dates back to the 80's.

[laurentius]

Music Day, the best day in Paris? How come, what's happening there?
A young tradition..speaking of traditions one of the best french writers to describe them was Marcel Mauss in his "l'Essai sur le don"