To someone seeing Swedish Midsummer from the outside, the whole thing may seem fairly sensible at first. It is summer. The days are long. People gather outdoors, eat together and put flowers in their hair. Then fully grown adults begin hopping around a leafy pole while singing about frogs with no ears and no tails. That is roughly where Midsummer becomes more interesting. Midsummer is one of Sweden’s biggest celebrations. It takes place in June, close to the longest day o

Some Swedish words are fairly easy to translate. And then there are words like lagom. It is often translated as “just right”, “not too much, not too little”, “in moderation” or “the right amount”. All of those are roughly correct. But none of them quite captures the full feeling. Because lagom is not just an amount. Sometimes it is a temperature, a tone, a way of dressing, a way of speaking, a way of taking up space in a room without knocking over the lamp. In short: lagom