Swedish Holidays: A Learner's Calendar

Swedish holidays come with fixed rituals, foods and songs, and plenty of vocabulary. Knowing them helps with small talk ("What are you doing for midsommar?") and with understanding why shops close and colleagues take the day off. Here they are in calendar order.

First, a useful distinction. A helgdag is an official public holiday; Swedes usually say röd dag ("red day"), because these days are printed in red in the calendar. Some of Sweden's best-loved days are not on that list: Midsummer Eve (midsommarafton) and Christmas Eve (julafton) are not official public holidays, but most people are off work anyway. See the Nordic Council's overview of Swedish public holidays for the list. The public holidays are: nyårsdagen, trettondedag jul, långfredag, påskdagen, annandag påsk, första maj, Kristi himmelsfärds dag, nationaldagen, pingstdagen, midsommardagen, alla helgons dag, juldagen and annandag jul.

6 January: trettondedag jul

Trettondedag jul ("the thirteenth day of Christmas", Epiphany) is a public holiday. It marks the end of the main Christmas season in church terms. Many Swedes keep decorations up a bit longer and take the tree down on tjugondag Knut (13 January), with the saying Tjugondag Knut dansas julen ut.

February or March: fettisdagen

Fettisdagen ("Fat Tuesday") falls on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, so the date moves from year to year. It is not a day off. The tradition is to eat a semla (plural semlor): a cardamom bun filled with almond paste and whipped cream. Bakeries sell them for weeks around the date. Some people eat it in a bowl of warm milk, which is called hetvägg.

March or April: påsk

Påsk (Easter) is a long weekend: långfredag (Good Friday), påskdagen (Easter Sunday) and annandag påsk (Easter Monday) are public holidays. Typical traditions:

• Påskägg: decorated eggs, often cardboard eggs filled with sweets.
• Påskris: branches decorated with coloured feathers.
• Påskkärringar: children dressed up as Easter witches who go door to door, handing out drawings in return for sweets, in the days before Easter.
• Påskbord: an Easter spread with herring, eggs and salmon.

30 April: Valborg

Valborgsmässoafton, or just Valborg, welcomes spring. It is not a public holiday, but the next day, första maj (1 May), is. In many towns, people gather round a valborgsbrasa or valborgseld (bonfire; called majbrasa in western Sweden) and sing spring songs. In university towns such as Uppsala and Lund, Valborg is a big student celebration.

6 June: nationaldagen

Nationaldagen is Sweden's national day, celebrated on 6 June. It has been a public holiday since 2005. It's a fairly low-key day compared with national days elsewhere: flags, ceremonies, and often new citizens' ceremonies held by kommuner. The Swedish flag is blue with a yellow cross.

June: midsommar

Midsommarafton (Midsummer Eve) is celebrated on the Friday between 19 and 25 June, and midsommardagen is the Saturday, which is a public holiday. For many Swedes this is the biggest celebration of the summer. The usual elements:

• raising and dancing round the midsommarstång (maypole), decorated with flowers and leaves;
• the traditional dance små grodorna ("the little frogs"), with its frog-like hopping;
• sill (pickled herring), nypotatis (new potatoes) with dill, and jordgubbar (strawberries);
• snaps and drinking songs, as well as flower crowns (blomsterkrans).

Many cities empty out as people head to the countryside or the archipelago.

August: kräftskiva

A kräftskiva is a crayfish party, traditionally held in August. It isn't a public holiday and there is no fixed date. Guests wear paper hats, hang paper lanterns, eat kräftor with bread and cheese, and sing snapsvisor (drinking songs). The word for the glass of spirit is snaps.

October or November: alla helgons dag

Alla helgons dag (All Saints' Day) is a public holiday on the Saturday between 31 October and 6 November, set by Swedish law. It is a quiet day of remembrance: that weekend people visit cemeteries and light candles on the graves of family members.

13 December: Lucia

Lucia (Luciadagen) is in the middle of the dark Swedish winter and celebrates light. It isn't a public holiday. A luciatåg (Lucia procession) of children or choir singers, dressed in white, walks in with candles. The Lucia herself wears a crown of candles (often battery-powered for children), and the others carry candles, sing, and sometimes dress as tärnor, tomtar or pepparkaksgubbar. You'll find processions in schools, churches and workplaces, with lussekatter (saffron buns) and glögg (mulled wine, also non-alcoholic).

24 December: julafton

In Sweden the main Christmas celebration is on julafton (Christmas Eve, 24 December), not on the 25th. Here is what usually happens:

• Julbord: a Christmas buffet with julskinka (Christmas ham), sill, köttbullar, prinskorv and rödkål.
• Kalle Anka: at 15:00 on SVT, a Disney Christmas special called Kalle Anka och hans vänner önskar God Jul is watched by many families as a tradition.
• Tomten (a gnome-like figure) brings the presents; in many families a relative dresses up as him. Gifts are called julklappar.

Juldagen (25 December) and annandag jul (26 December) are public holidays, and many people spend them with family.

New Year's Eve and other days worth knowing

Nyårsafton (31 December) is celebrated with friends, fireworks and a toast. Nyårsdagen (1 January) is a public holiday. Kristi himmelsfärds dag (Ascension Day) and pingstdagen (Whit Sunday) are also public holidays, though they have few special customs and are mostly known as days off. Whit Monday (annandag pingst) stopped being a public holiday in 2005, when National Day replaced it, according to the Nordic Council.

Use these words in conversation: asking a Swede what they do for midsommar or jul is a friendly way to start a chat, and gives you real practice.