Family havoc at midsummer

Okay, so got all the shopping done before midsummer. For those of you that doesn't celebrate midsummer traditionally, here it's major. Except for Skansen, the city's pretty much emptied when people go to their, or someone else's, summerhouse out in the archipelago for the weekend. And then start at around noon to gulp down vasts amounts of aquavit (not as healthy as is sounds, it turns out), snaps, beer and every other interesting liquid they can find. Although this is done in a very orderly fashion; we sing to it. This is very amusing to an outsider, which I can completley understand. As soon as some one spontaneously says Skål! (which amazingly seems to happen alot) everyone start singing snaps-visor, (they're not too long) which ends with another Skål! and an emptying of the snaps. Sill and snaps is also closely connected on our smörgåsbord and needs to be taken together. Hence alot of singing occurs during lunch.
My own dear family is no less when it comes to midsummer. The usual misdummer is spent out in my grandparents house in the archipelago about an hours drive from central Stockholm. Set up on a mountainhill it has a beautiful view over the water. And there we all join up. Myself, my brother, our cousin, uncles and aunt, and also our dear old great grandmother. As the oldest in the family, great grandmother has her own perks. No one really contradicts her, so she can do pretty much all she wants. And what grandmother likes like no other is a good party. And she's very fast on pickin the right seat at the dinnertable. You see, grandmother has this posh handblown snapsglasses, which - as it turns out - are hence not exactly the same size. This always causes tableseatings to be a riot. Greatgrandmother, of course, always takes the first seat. Usually by proclaiming some age realted pain and sits down at an early stage (and then having all us young ones fething her wine), then next up is usually Tomas, one of my uncles. He's the oldest of the two present brothers and am skilled enough not to let anything divert him from eyemeasure the glasses. Dante and David (uncle) are usually the ones following closely after. These three is usually to whom the fights are contained, unless Tom as the father and man of the house decides to step in as well. Left in all this havoc is dear little grandmother running around tryin to keep the peace, whereas greatgrandmother is just loving it all. But it is all done in a very loving spirit. Tomas and David likes to fight about the glasses, and they're delighted now that Dante's grown up to join in as well. Tomas, as the dutifull uncle he is, immediately took him under his wings and made sure the lad was taken well care of. Grandmother, I remember, looked a bit frightened at that time.