ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Merry Christmas!!

Bjarney,
that's the best dish of the whole year

Swedes have Christmas ham on the table, not turkey. Apart from the ham, all other dishes varies from house to house.

Among the drinks are "julmust", a type of soft drink, and "glögg", a mulled wine akin to "glühwein".

Seems rather silly to bring this up.
But over here, we have a Mid-Winter Xmas party in NZ here, is there a sort of a Mid-Summer's party, in the Northern Hemisphere?.

Oh yes we do!

"Midsommar" is almost as big as Christmas in Sweden. It's a pagan tradition the church never dared to ban.

The Druids over here celebrate the summer soltice as well, and often try to gather at certain places of significance, such as Stonehenge .

Several northern-hemisphere countries have their various national holiday during the summer months as well, e.g. U.S.A. (July 4), France (July 14).

Canada Has Canada Day July 1st

Not to mention the summer bookends,

Victoria day (third Monday in May, US has memorial day the week after)), which is called May 24 weekend, and is the spiritual beginning of summer in Canada.

Labour day, first Monday in September, school starts the next day, which makes it essentially
the end of summer.

In England we also have the rather non-descript "Bank" holidays, two of which are the Spring Bank Holiday at the end of May, and the Summer Bank Holiday at the end of August.

Paul, I had never thought about the "national holiday in summer" thing but when you mention it: The Swedish national holiday is on June 6 . Not that anyone cares to celebrate it. It's not even a holiday (sic!)

Canada has labour day in September??? How about other countries? I thought may 1 was universal.

Clearly, Swedes are a bit more optimistic than Canadians. The start of summer is on April 30, no matter how cold it is.

The only holidays we have over here during the Summer are the Xmas and New Years ones
(if you are lucky enough to get them off!).
I find it amazing here, that there are no actual Public Holidays during the Winter months, Easter is in Autumn here.
Just a small point here Paul, why on earth do people that work in Banks need a seperate holiday, considering that they don't start work until 9am and only work until 4:30pm?.
Sorry just being silly!.
Well, there guy's, what do you people eat during these festive occassions during your Summers?.
Lots of salads, cold meat?.
Or a BBQ?, any Regional variations on the BBQ, BTW?.
Us guys and to a certain extent the Australian folk just Grill plain or Marinated Beef, or Pork or Lamb.
Coming from a country that actually produces this sort of fare, it's un-ususally expensive here!.
But myself and a few people from the Abbatoirs that I used to work at, got in with a local Farmer, to provide us with a Full "body" of Beef every Summer and I usually end up boning the thing out, to give T-Bone steaks, Sirloin, and Rump steaks for all in the "Syndicate".
For NZ$50, per year, between the 5 of us, as well as Boning charges to me, NZ$35, it's just great and we all get together to taste the first cut!.
Fill your freezer up, no problems, my friend in the Syndicate, vacuum packs it too!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 02-23-2004).]

U.S. Labor Day is the first Monday in September.

Have a look at http://www.smart.net/~mmontes/ushols.html for information on U.S. holidays. There's a calculator there to give you the exact dates of the "movable" holidays for any year.

Barbecues have become more popular is the U.K. in recent years, although there are plenty of Brits who seem to detest them for some reason. Personally, I love to eat outdoors from a BBQ on a nice warm summer evening. The climate here is the only thing that really goes against the BBQ!