Singing with the Swedes

Last Saturday night we were invited to dinner by one of Jim’s coworkers. They are a very entertaining Swedish couple who like most Swedes know how to have a good time.

They had us over for a traditional Swedish summer meal. During the month of August people in Sweden have crayfish parties called Kräftskiva. Traditionally the month of August was the beginning of the crayfish harvest in Sweden. However, the parties were so popular that there are no longer crayfish in Sweden but they stick to tradition and still have them in August. The Swedish now export their crayfish from Louisiana, China or Turkey.

The gist of these crayfish parties as far as I can tell are that you must wear a crayfish paper hat (like a kid’s birthday hat), hang some smiling moon paper lanterns, eat a bunch of chilled crayfish cooked with dill and salt, drink copious amounts of schnapps (probably the most important element to these parties) and sing Swedish drinking songs.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any video of Christer singing the drinking songs because he did it so well. However, thanks to the wonder of YouTube, I found a clip of our favorite Swedish drinking song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvnBgCgetrw