How and when do we party in Sweden ? How does a Swedish countryside party play out?
The answer depends on the age and your background. Of course the younger generation do not need a reason to party but as you get older, busier and perhaps a little more boring it is not that easy to gather friends for a good time.
The younger Swedes also tend to perhaps go to places where they know they will meet other party goers. While the generation above a certain age just need a bit more slow traveling and a new mindset from the hustle and bustle of everyday life,
Nevertheless, there are times when we all like to get together such as
- birthday coming up with even numbers such as 40, 50 or 60 and so on
- A child is born and parent´s invite family and friends to a name giving ceremony or baptism
- A Wedding of course
- A släktträff or an extended family get-together
- Midsummer celebration or crayfish party
Step number one is to decide on a place and time. The best time is in the Swedish summer when the nights are long, nature painfully beautiful and with a bit of luck also warm. City people are all planning to leave the cities anyway as they desperately need week-end city breaks and countryside retreats. We all need to change environment once in a while to cool off.
Swedes often go to their summer cottage or hembygd i.e the place of origin of their ancestors or more perhaps just the person´s place of birth or upbringing.
For many others, if there is no such place we just want countryside place by water.
My personal take on my Swedish private party, countryside get-together
I like to keep my get-togethers on a relaxed level. To much details in the planing process is not my thing. Once I have the overall idea set I tend to wake up in the morning with new insights and fun ideas. This is why, I also complicate things as the planning start to take form. I have a need for deeper meaning and I guess that during the night my subconscious is on high speed. So what components are important to me? Well as far as I understand after many years of getting to know myself this is what I look for:
- A reason to go to one of my favorite places in the world,
- Create a deeper connection to my family
- Re-connect with a friend or friends from the different periods in my life
- A place and people who love to celebrate life
- Re-create or re-enact moments that would take me back to my childhood in some ways
- I can never fully leave my “work brain” at home and I want to use the opportunity to get inspiration and content to write for GoNatureTrip and Go Nature Market website and extend the ideas of a great motorhome trip with your friends and family.
- Summer is short in Sweden so it is important to test ideas and potential products with my GoNatureTrip partners, For this occasion, my 60th birthday, I wanted to work with Iwona who runs Cross Baltica and I have for our East meet North concept.
The party to remember- Go wild on the Swedish Country side
So I recently celebrated my 60th birthday party. And as mentioned above I kind of knew what I wanted. To be in a place that I love, lots of moment with connection with friends and family and above all I wanted to celebrate life. Rather than the party I wanted to have a get-together that would linger on.
In addition it was important to create shared memories around songs, drinks, food, dancing and outdoor activities. My childhood was spent outdoors mainly, typical for my generation the pre-digitalization kids.
The owners at Ödevata Countryside hotel., Malin and Magnus are good friends and they graciously offered me to host my private party at their eco resort in Småland, South Sweden. Ödevata is place full of soul and life. The offer to celebrate my birthday at one of my favorite places on earth was such as beautiful gesture and a token of our almost 12 years friendship and partnership.
I helped my friends to book rooms in the hotel and in the beautiful eco apartments. This is such a beautiful place to gather friends but not a party resort so I knew I had to do some planning. It was fun to plan for the drinks to bring. Especially fun was to go hunting for cocktail glasses. I made several rummage trips to second hand shops ( At Ödevata they promote recycling and buying second hand). I also had to find the kitchen team which gave me great freedom to go with my inner thoughts. As for the music, one of my guests, a childhood friend of my son, borrowed a mixer table and speakers and we were set to go.
The magic started on a Friday as people turned up from all over Europa and Sweden. Sundays we said our goodbyes with many created new memories and stories how we met and what we had done throught out our relationships and friendships. New friendship emerged. When you are with good friends it is magic, they will usually start to like each other as well and life is perfect.
I could fully understand why we managed to stay in touch over the years (sometimes with decades before rekindling the contact).
East meet North with a mix of south and the flair from the Americas
As I have a Scandinavian ( mainly Swedish but some Norwegian), East European and Jewish ancestry and identity it was important to find ways to convey that. I share with my sister the need to understand my non-Scandinavian roots and I want to share this journey with her and my sons. I also spent many years in Spanish speaking countries, both in Spain and South America.
The Swedish part of the party
– The main ingredients for the food came from Ödevata Countryside Hotel´s own produce, i.e spare ribs from their sheep and Talapia from their Aquaponic
– We brought our own material to make drinks and I wanted to try out the syrups from Sjöborgen. We had Lingonberry, Birch flavor, Rhubarb and Meadowsweet herb.
– The Sauna on the ramp in the lake Ödevaten was a great success for Swedes and non Swedes alike. Nothing like talking in a Suana and then take a dip into the cool water.
The East European
Friends from Romania came to my party. I was happy to present a piece of Sweden to them. In addition I worked with a amazing team of women with their roots in Eastern Europe.
My dear friend and partner Iwona from Cross Baltica works with a team of great Ukrainian women and men that knows how to cook East European flavors based on Swedish and local ingredients. Anna , and her crew cooked stews, soups and fish accompanied by night snacks. We had dinner the first nigh with midnight snacks. The next day we served lunch and dinner again. Dzintra, based in Eriksmåla, but with her roots in Latvia, baked wonderful bread and dessert.
I had worked with this wonderful team before, when we organized an alternative Christmas and Nobel celebration at Ödevata.
The Meny
Iwona in the pictures explains the idea behind the cross-cultural food
“We at Cross Baltica creates cross-culture events, including representatives of different nationalities. for Eva’s party I worked with Anna from Ukraine and Dzintra from Latvia that created the menu – based on local ingredients but with roots in east-european cuisine.
Anna cooked a Hungarian goulash on lamb ribs from Ödevata and Dzintra baked corn bread to the meal – inspired by Hungarian bread. Next day Anna served the iconic borshch – red beet soup, totally vegan, and as it grows a lot of goosefot (Chenopodium album, SE: svinmölla) – it was added to the soup, giving a desired sour touch. Dzintra baked another bread, served together with butter whipped with local herbs. That’s how we work with cross-culture cooking- using local ingredients and competence of persons with foreign backgrounds”
The countryside fun and music
At a Swedish party, like all other parties, music and dance is important. I have lived in many countries and regions so the music list was long. We had a lot of rock, some punk rock, latin rhythms and Swedish music. In addition we played tunes from the 70s and 80s. It seems that the Boney M tunes are as popular today as they were back then.
As I decided to have some country western themes, just to make people dance together, this was also on the music list. We all quickly learned some of the basic steps for line dancing and danced away to different country western songs.
The Spanish and South American flair and music
I had dear friends from my time in Spain and Argentina coming to the party. I love the music and we played Argentina rock and Dominican and Cuban music. One of the theme songs at the party the song “Bonito” from the Spanish rock band Jarabe de Palo. Such great lyrics for our get-together
“Bonito, todo me parece bonito Bonita mañana, bonito lugar”
Birthday present and sharing important moments
I asked my friends and family not to bring gifts. Instead I hinted that they could bring some wine, champagne or some entertainment for all of us to share.
I knew that some of the guests played an instrument so over the weeks before the party I asked them to perhaps find their instrument and bring it along, A special thanks to Mike Li , a friend and GoNatureTrip partner, who after almost 20 years took out his violin and played one of my grandfathers music that we found in a small notebook among our mum´s belongings. The music was composed in a Russian prison camp at the end of the second world war. For reason that are not clear to even me, we never heard being played before. Not sure why we waited so long. Perhaps I waited for the moment that just happened at my party at this magical eco resort in the Swedish South.
No tears were spared from me and my sister. Tears of awe ,joy and gratefulness.
Exercise for the soul, mind and body with friends
I asked my sister Ann and her best friend Jeanette Stenquist to lead some fitness sessions on the beautiful grounds of Ödevata Country Side hotel. Jeanette had us all going. A great moment of laughter and realizing that we should all follow Jeanette´s on-line YouTube sessions for core and other “good for your life span and healthy body” sessions. In the afternoon she took a group out in the beautiful woodlands around Ödevata for some soul running.
To all my friends and family-Thank you for going wild on the Swedish countryside with me!
