The date of the summer solstice changes slowly over time (it’s tomorrow in the UK). For those that care about this date - do you celebrate it on the actual solstice date, or is there a date that has entered the calender out of tradition that represents ‘midsummer’ in your country. e.g. June 24th (say) might be celebrated as the solstice out of tradition, but in reality the actual longest day is a few days displaced.
Whenever a woman wants to feel “more fresh.” Whoops, sorry – that’s “Summer’s Eve.”
AFAIK, there is no official or traditional “midsummer” in the U.S.; summer begins on the solstice (as calculated by the Naval Observatory, I think), and we take no further note of the season until the autumnal equinox.
In Finland, Midsummer is celebrated on the Saturday which falls between June 20th and June 26th. This has been the custom since 1955; traditionally, in other countries like Norway and the Baltic countries, Midsummer is still celebrated on June 24th, the day of John the Baptist. We moved it to a Saturday to…I dunno, be able to drink beer more freely (this seems to be the point of a fair number of Finnish holidays). So Midsummer Eve in Finland is the Friday falling between the 19th and 25th of June. This year, it’s the 25th.
Same in Sweden
As a practical matter, most neopagan groups who do a Solstice do it on the weekend closest to the date, if the Solstice isn’t on the weekend. This means more people can attend. It’s generally the same for most of the Sabbats, except for Samhain. Samhain, being Halloween in the US, is so entrenched as a Holiday that it’s pretty easy to get people out on the 31st, even if it’s a Wednesday.
Summer Solstice, however, is the hardest one to get people out to. It’s just too close to Father’s Day, and many people have family commitments that weekend.
In my experience no-one cares much about father’s day and midsummers day here (UK).
It is (was) a big deal in Sweden though.
I’d say is. Not as big as Christmas, of course, but without doubt second biggest deal of the year.
I think the formula used in Sweden is to place Midsummer’s eve on the Friday closest to the 24th and the reason is of course to get a longer weekend (which enables us to drink more beer … or vodka … or whatever).
I was at a Solstice party this Saturday night, because it was the closest weekend night to today.
That is something that has struck me as odd with Brits. Why don’t you celebrate The Big Day on the day? I had planned to go to London some years ago to celebrate someone’s hundredth birthday, but when the arrangers decided to do it on the Saturday instead of on the Thursday I got fed up and didn’t attend at all.
Because we like to get drunk and stay up late, and wouldn’t be able to go to work the next day if it wasn’t at the weekend. Plus, the party I was at was a whole weekend do, out in the middle of nowhere, with everyone camping, which would have made going to work even more unlikely.
That said, I’m surprised you missed someone’s 100th birthday celebration just because of a three-day delay… But each to their own.
Really? That seems a bit arbitrary to me. What’s the determining hour, exactly? If he was born at 3 pm, do you need to be there exactly at 2:59, ready to wish him a happy birthday? Is an hour away okay? 23 hours? Is it when the calendar day switches?
Time is an illusion. (Lunchtime doubly so.) The best time to celebrate is when people can come together to celebrate, even if it’s not technically the birthday anymore, IMHO.
In Spanish there isn’t an equivalent term; A Midsummer’s Night Dream is called “El sueño de una noche de verano”, lit. “a dream in a summer night”.
There are many places which celebrate la Víspera de San Juan, the Eve of the Feast of St John the Baptist, but the whole symbology is very different from yours. In Spain these celebrations involve big purification bonfires (1) people used to jump over; the jumping over has now been declared illegal to protect us from ourselves but well, you just wait until the cops aren’t looking. AFAIK there are no mentions of meigas, duendes, gnomos, hadas, dones d’aigua or other fae, not even in the Northwestern corner which happens to be the area most prone to such stories. There are legends that include some event taking place in St John’s or its Eve, but no mention of the day itself being special, it’s often something along the lines of the main character being in the process of returning home from the bonfires when he meets someone strange - what’s special is someone returning home after breakfast, and this happens in St John’s. Being linked to a Catholic feast, the Eve itself is not actually mobile, but in recent times (specifically since the Feast of St Peter and St Paul stopped being a national holiday), it has become common to celebrate Sts Peter and Paul on the weekend prior to the 29th and St John on the weekend before that. They get celebrated on their official dates only in those locations which have set either one as a local holiday.
1: traditionally used to burn old furniture, clothing, or the books from the most hated subjects you had this last schoolyear… this last one might involve needing to replace said books, as the Eve takes place before most students have gotten their grades and the Spanish system involves retaking Fs. Of course, the government has now decided that burning such things in public bonfires is Not To Be Allowed, but see above for “when the cops aren’t looking”.
Odd reaction. I don’t think there is anything particularly British about postponing celebrations to a more convenient, nearby day. I have known Americans to make similar arrangements.
For some strange reason, most Americans seem to believe that midsummer’s day (i.e., the day of the solstice, the middle of the three month period when the sun is at its highest in the northern hemisphere sky) is the “official” start of summer, rather than being the midpoint of the season. As the Perfect Master himself has pointed out, there is no rational or scientific basis for this, little in the way of traditional basis, and there is certainly nothing “official” about it (even in the U.S.A.).
I organised a celebration at home instead.
Not odd at all. It’s simply a matter of respect for a revered person being above one’s own convenience.
You think that not attending someone’s party, and celebrating at your own home instead, is showing them respect? :dubious: This gets odder.
In Latvia, rather than move the holiday to be adjacent to a weekend, they celebrate Jani (basically midsummer) on the night of the 23rd to the 24th, both of which are national holidays. They then unofficially take off however many additional days they need to connect Jani to a weekend.
At the risk of hijacking this thread irreparably, and with the minimum of information at hand, this sounds like a honking great pile of bollocks.
The person’s convenience or that of all the guests? What if people had to drive miles to attend? How did the centurion in question take it? Did they mind? Were they pleased you got in a snit and decided not to turn up?
Erratum: centenarian
A centurion would look awesome at a bonfire. Just sayin’. 