Midsummer is the moment when the sun stays up the longest. In the south of Sweden, the sun is up for nearly 19 hours. In the north, it doesn't set at all. The whole country goes outside to enjoy it. Cities go quiet because everyone has driven to the countryside, a forest cabin or a beach.
The centre of any Midsummer party is the 'midsommarst氓ng' - the midsummer pole. Friends and family pick fresh leaves, branches and wildflowers and decorate the pole until it looks like a giant flower-covered cross. Then the whole pole is lifted up to stand in the middle of a field. Everyone holds hands and dances around it in big circles.
Almost everyone wears a flower crown. People go out into the fields in the morning to pick wildflowers and weave them into a circle to wear on their head. Some children even make tiny flower crowns for their dogs. The wildflowers smell amazing in the warm midsummer air.
The food is just as much fun. Midsummer dinner usually has new potatoes (the first ones of the year), pickled herring (a kind of small fish in vinegar), sour cream and chives, and strawberries with cream for pudding. The first wild strawberries of the year usually appear in time for Midsummer, so the tables are bright red and white.