Den 6 juni 2012 firar vi Sveriges nationaldag och Svenska Flaggans dag!

Kom till Moreton's Bar & Restaurant i St Heliers så sjunger vi nationalsången och minglar.

Från Sweden.se

National Day
by Po Tidholm

Sweden has not taken part in any of the wars of the modern era, which may explain the Swedes’ somewhat guarded attitude towards celebrating a national day. They are proud of their country but don’t seem to feel any great need to show it. Previously, 6 June was not a public holiday, and for many people the only sign that this was a special occasion was the decoration of buses with Swedish flags.

Celebration with the Royal Family
Every year, the King and Queen take part in a ceremony at Skansen, Stockholm’s open-air museum, where the yellow and- blue Swedish flag is run up the mast, and children in traditional peasant costume present the royal couple with bouquets of summer flowers.

These days, special ceremonies welcoming new Swedish citizens are held around the country on National Day.

The last time people in general took an active interest in Sweden as a nation-state was at the turn of the last century, when national-romantic winds were blowing through the country and folklore societies and local history museums were established. It was then that 6 June first became a day of celebration.

Public holiday for the first time in 2005
In 2004, the Swedish Riksdag voted to make it a public holiday, which may cause people to become more interested in celebrating it. The final decision took decades to reach — various proposals had been bandied about under a succession of governments.

There are also groups lobbying for the introduction of an official National Pastry, and a National Dish, and for the key-fiddle (nyckelharpa) to be made the National Instrument. But even for ideas as innocent as these, arriving at a consensus has proved difficult.

National Day
by Agneta Lilja, Södertörn University College

Since 1983, Sweden has celebrated its National Day on 6 June. This is the date on which Gustav Vasa was crowned king in 1523 and on which a new constitution was adopted in 1809. The original idea came from Artur Hazelius, who founded the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm and held a national day celebration there on 6 June as early as the 1890s.

At the 1893 World Fair in Chicago, Sweden presented Midsummer Day as a form of Swedish national day, and it was subsequently proposed that this arrangement be officially sanctioned at home. As Hazelius organised Skansen’s national day festivity at the end of spring, Sweden celebrated the occasion twice a year in the 1890s. In 1916,

Hazelius’s idea was officially adopted and 6 June became Swedish Flag Day. The name celebrated the fact that Sweden had acquired its own flag following the dissolution of the union with Norway in 1905.