If you see the Finnish flag flying in front of public buildings, you’ll know it’s a special day. All Finnish holidays are liputuspäivät, flag days; however, there are additional flag days that are not public holidays, such as Mother’s Day, on the second Sunday of May. The majority of national holidays are of Christian origin. Others, however, like Vappu, marking the end of winter, or Midsummer’s Day, tie the Finnish calendar to the cycle of the seasons.
Epiphany (January 6), is a public holiday. It marks the official end of Christmas. There are no particular festivities related to this day, except in church. Most people take down their Christmas trees on this day.
Good Friday and Easter follow the Western Church calendar, although some of the customs related to celebrating Easter have come from the Orthodox tradition. On Palm Sunday (Easter Sunday in western Finland), children go door-to-door dressed as witches, wishing their elders good health, and receive chocolate in return for a decorated willow branch. The tradition dates back to a time when mischievous spirits and witches were thought to wonder the streets before Easter, looking for trouble.
Mämmi, the traditional Finnish Easter dessert, is eaten alongside pasha, the traditional sweet pudding marking the end of Lent in the Orthodox tradition. Finns decorate their houses for Easter, and it is traditional to grow some grass in a dish to symbolize the new growing season. Ascension Day and Whitsun (Pentecost) are also public holidays, the dates varying in accordance with Easter
On February 5 the Finns mark the birthday of the national poet, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, and eat traditional cakes named after him. Known as runebergintorttuja, these are small, cylindrical cakes topped with raspberry marmalade and powdered sugar.
Kalevala Day, also known as Finnish Culture Day, is on February 28, marking the day when the compiler of the oral tradition, Elias Lönnrot, signed and dated the initial version of the national epic. A number of events to celebrate the Kalevala and the Finnish language take place all over the country.
On March 8, Finns celebrate women and women’s rights by giving flowers and presents to the women in their lives.
April Fool’s Day is marked by news stories that test people’s credulity.
May Day (May 1) is a public holiday. It is a celebration of many things: the end of a long winter, workers’ rights and socialist traditions, as well as student life and higher education. The celebrations start on the eve of May Day, or Vappuaatto. This typically involves eating warm weather fare, such as sausages (nakit) and potato salad (perunasalaatti), desserts such as sugary doughnuts (munkit) and funnel cake (tippaleipä), in addition to drinking lots of beer and sparkling wine.
Graduates don their white caps at the jovial May Day celebrations.
This is a lively, community-centered drinking festival with elements of carnival—balloons, funny hats, and a lot of noise. Traditionally, May Day marks the official beginning of spring, originally celebrated on May 14, Flora’s Day. Local choirs usher in the spring through song in the morning, while political and trade union activists organize town marches and political rallies. It is customary for graduates of higher education to wear their white, Nordic-style student caps. Lunching in a restaurant is another May Day custom, and menus often include a lot of salted fish, to cure the hangovers from the night before!
Midsummer’s Day falls on the nearest Saturday to June 21, the longest day of the year. Midsummer marks the annual yötönyö (nightless night), when the sun doesn’t set at all in the north of Finland, and the sky remains a dusky blue and pink even in the far south. The magic associated with midsummer has roots in pagan fertility rites, but it is also in part a celebration of warmth and light after a long, dark winter. Midsummer, in contrast to May Day, is usually celebrated in the countryside. On the eve of Midsummer (juhannusaatto), there is usually a mass exodus from towns and cities for lakeside summer homes, nestled in the forest. Even Helsinki can be very quiet, though traditional celebrations with bonfires and outdoor dancing are organized in the Seurasaari outdoor museum area. As in all Finnish secular celebrations, a great deal of alcohol is consumed, usually in the heat of the sauna, or by the shores of a lake.
All Saints’ Day takes place during the first weekend in November. On this day, Finns acknowledge the dead by placing candles on the graves of family, friends, and ancestors. A sea of candles can make for a beautiful sight on dark November night.
December 6, marks Finnish independence from the Russian Empire in 1917 after more than 100 years of occupation. The day usually takes on a somber, patriotic tone, and Finns express gratitude for the country they live in.
A televised reception is held each year at the Presidential Palace, where Finnish celebrities of all stripes are dressed to the nines. The press reports on all aspects of the celebration, but particularly the fashion on display (this event is something like the Finnish version of the Oscars).
The most important day of the Christmas season is Christmas Eve, or Jouluaatto, on December 24. This is when Finns eat Christmas dinner, which usually consists of roast ham, carrot, potato, or rutabaga casserole, ginger cakes and biscuits, and, of course, mulled wine (glögi). After an early Christmas meal, Finnish children receive gifts—directly from Santa Claus himself! The Finnish Santa does not bother with chimneys, preferring to walk straight through the front door. This is because almost every family has their own Santa; typically, a family member or friend dresses up and delivers presents to the children of the house.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day (Tapaninpäivä) are usually uneventful, public holidays. Most shops, restaurants, and public offices are closed on Christmas Day, but things are changing: you’ll find that more and more public places remain open every year.
December 31, New Year’s Eve, is a big celebration in Finland, complete with fireworks displays, eating and drinking with friends and loved ones, and partying, either at home or out on the town. Usually, the night either begins or ends with a sauna turn. One old custom still practiced by many on New Year’s Eve is melting tin horseshoes. The melted tin is cast into a bucket of snow or water, and then the shape is interpreted in the shadow of a candle to predict what the new year will bring.
New Year’s Day is a public holiday. The president makes an annual address to the nation, which is broadcast on radio and on television.
Love your wife? Celebrate your romance by throwing her over your shoulder and dragging her round an obstacle course for an hour.
As you have probably guessed by now, summer is a cherished time in Finland. It is short, full of light, and glorious (when the weather is good). Because it’s a special time of year, there are hundreds of outdoor festivals and events that take place all over the country. There are music, theater, folklore, poetry, dance, and visual arts festivals, along with hundreds of sporting events, from rowing to wife-carrying! Most municipalities organize one or more music festivals a year, some of which are widely known and draw audiences from around the world. They range from opera in Savonlinna to jazz in Pori, from folk music in Kaustinen to tango in Seinäjoki, and from rock in Joensuu to chamber music in Kuhmo.
The Opera Festival hosted in Savonlinna, an idyllic lakeside town, is internationally recognized and attracts many important names in the genre. Finnish singers and visiting opera stars perform in the medieval castle of Olavinlinna, located on an island in the middle of town. Each year sees the premieres of new operas, attended by connoisseurs and laypeople alike. In Savonlinna you can enjoy the specialty of fried vendace (muikku), a local fish, on Muikku Terrace overlooking the lake on Midsummer’s Eve, or a five-course dinner at the Oopperakellari, alongside the singers you have just heard at the opera.
Pori Jazz Festival has attracted some of the leading jazz musicians of the world, including such artists as the late Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and The Manhattan Transfer. The festival doesn’t stop at jazz, though; there have been plenty of performers outside the genre, like Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, and B.B. King. There’s something for almost everyone at Pori Jazz, which probably explains why it is one of the oldest and best attended festivals in Finland.
Ulkomaalainen (foreign) cultural commentators have often noted the incongruity of the stoic, sometimes even somber, nature of Finnish culture and its love for tango. Finns, however, have made some modifications to the Argentinian dance, thereby making it their own. For one thing, Finnish tango is written almost exclusively in a minor key, giving it a certain melancholy sort of sisu. Whatever the reason, Finns love to dance the tango, so the Tango Markkinat (Tango Festival) in Seinäjoki is a popular event. The festival consists mainly of dance competitions, but it is also a general celebration of this quirky aspect of Finnish culture.
Ilosaarirock, held in the North Karelian city of Joensuu, combines all varieties of rock into one spectacular outdoor music festival. Ilosaari has welcomed headliners such as Imagine Dragons, Portishead, Aphex Twin, Muse, and, of course, Finnish symphonic metal favorite, Nightwish. The festival usually takes place during the second weekend of July, when Finnish summer weather is most likely to be at its best. If you are a fan of rock music and you enjoy multiday, outdoor festivals, this is the place for you.
Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, started by the Finnish cellist Seppo Kimanen and his Japanese wife Yoshiko Arai, is one of the world’s leading chamber music festivals. It is run by volunteers in the small town of Kuhmo, in the northeast of the country. There is a different theme each year, and over two hundred concerts take place over nine days and nights, with the venues ranging from old schools to the church. The festival made world headlines in the mid-1980s, when the talented Soviet pianist Viktoria Mullova defected to the West while performing at Kuhmo.
Rites of passage marked by established customs vary by family and region. Even so, there are a number of traditions that are universal.
Despite growing secularism, for what is still a majority of Finns, a christening or baptism will take place when a baby is around two months old, and is traditionally when the child’s name will be revealed by the parents. It is traditional to give a child at least two first names, the second often being one that runs in the family. Most names are associated with a particular day of the year, according to a special “name day” calendar. Most people choose names from this calendar, thus giving the child a name day to celebrate.
Celebrating name days is universal in Finland. The day is marked with presents from close friends and family, and lots of congratulatory cards, text messages and Facebook posts from others. In the workplace, it is customary, even expected, to mark your own name day by bringing in cakes or sweets to share with your colleagues.
Similarly, most people also celebrate their birthdays. Finns sing “Happy Birthday” (“Paljon onnea vaan!”) to the “päivän sankkari,” “hero of the day,” and serve fare that will surely satisfy a sweet tooth. Important age milestones in Finnish culture typically include turning eighteen and fifty. Eighteen years old is the legal drinking age in Finland, so turning this age involves a warm welcome into Finnish drinking culture through activities such as pub crawls and clubbing. In contrast, fiftieth birthdays are a celebration of longevity and of what’s yet to come. Depending on an individual’s wishes, fiftieth birthday parties can be large, extravagant affairs, where dinner is served with wine, followed by cognac or liqueur and, of course, birthday cake.
The majority of Finns are members of the Lutheran Church through their christening and confirmation. The latter usually takes place at the age of fourteen, and is achieved through confirmation school or camp, followed by Holy Communion. Families organize a party, and the godparents are expected to attend. Even though Finnish society is increasingly secular, most couples get married in church. Big weddings are fashionable. The wedding is preceded by hen (women-only) and stag (men-only) parties for the bride and groom respectively—usually riotous events involving dressing up and crazy activities planned by their closest friends to celebrate the end of their single lives. As in most other Western cultures, alcohol plays a starring role in these events.
Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May, and Father’s Day, the second Sunday in November, are significant opportunities to celebrate parents and the role they have played in their children’s lives. Valentine’s Day, February 14, is not a romantic holiday as such; it’s referred to in Finland as Friendship Day (“Ystävän Päivä”), and is the perfect chance to show any important person in your life how much you care.
In their second year of upper secondary school, as the top class leaves for the examination season, young people dress up in formal evening gowns to do some formal, partnered dancing. This day is called Vanhojenpäivä, the Day of the Elders. The outgoing students, those in their third year, go around town on the last school day on floats, throwing candy into the street and dressed up as clowns, political figures, memorable film characters, and the like, with banners bearing sardonic comments about their school and education. The idea is that everybody in town knows that they have finished school. This event is called Penkinpainajaiset, which, roughly translated, means, “sitting down on the school bench for the last time.” Nowadays, however, that name has been shortened to “Penkkarit.”
Graduation from upper secondary is celebrated by a ceremony at school, followed by a party with the family, after which graduates and their friends usually move on to a local restaurant or bar. This is a poignant day for them, heralding as it does the loss of daily contact with their school friends. However, they can take comfort in the dozens of white roses given to them by party guests and in the promise that awaits them.
The Day of the Elders celebration ball—not your average student party.
