Is it still Vappu if there is no bonfire?

Last year we didn't do a May Day bonfire because conditions were too dry. This year there's no bonfire because the snow in the field is still more than knee deep and we don't feel like wading through it an attempt to torch a pile of sodden spruce boughs. Besides, how can it be May when snow is predicted for tomorrow?

It's been an odd year. Time is out of joint. January felt like it should be April, and now May feels like March. Last May everyone was worrying about wildfires; this year we all wanted the snow to be gone but now are worrying about what happens as it melts. The U.P. is thoroughly saturated, the CN tracks near our place have been underwater for a couple days, and a long section of state highway M-28 is closed because the Middle Branch of the Ontonagon decided to flow over a bridge instead of under it.

Not that this year is really that unusual. Last year was the aberration. This year is typical. I can recall that in my younger days (as in elementary school age) I used to wonder about a tradition I'd read about: May Day baskets. Ditto dancing around a May pole with flowers on one's head. I always wondered just where people got the flowers for the baskets and garlands I saw pictured because all I ever saw outside on May Day were melting snowbanks, mud, and once in a great while (if it was a particularly early Spring) a few crocuses.

Two more days until my birthday, and it's still looking like I'll be able to do some cross county skiing -- at least as long as I stick to the high ground.

[Actually, from what I hear, it's not truly a traditional Vappu unless there a  few drunks pissing on lamp posts, but this isn't Helsinki so we're out of luck in that department.]

Hei, it's Vappu!

Terveiset Teille, toivo Kalle..näin Toukokuussa Vuosi 2008! Today is Vappu, a major holiday in Finland. It's time to get out there, enjoy life, be a Finn for a day, and (if you really want to emulate your Nordic brethren) party till you puke.

Vappu, or May Day, has been the cause for celebrations in Europe for hundreds of years. In modern times it became the equivalent of Labor Day in this country, but the holiday itself was celebrated long before industrialization turned workers into wage slaves. Its roots lie, of course, in the traditional pagan celebrations of Beltane. It's a spring festival that falls midway between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice and commemorates the true end of harsh weather and the beginning of the growing season. Agrarian societies had reason to celebrate Vappu -- the snow was gone, flowers were blooming, early crops may have already been planted, so they knew the seasons had turned to the point where they no longer had to worry about either starving or freezing to death. It's a fun holiday with no (unless you're pagan or wiccan) overt religious symbolism tied to it, so it's not surprising Vappu celebrations have persisted into the 21st century.

It's becoming quite the annual event among Finnish-Americans, too, marked by dances at the Finn hall (but probably not at the one pictured above in Herman, Michigan), community picnics, bonfires, and other celebrations throughout the U.S., although not necessarily today. Finns are a pragmatic people, and in recognition that not everyone would have today free from work, Vappu celebrations were scheduled for this past weekend and for this coming one. The Finnish American Club in Port Richey, Florida, will be having a Vappu lunch on Sunday, May 4; the folks at Saima Park in Massachusetts had their Vappu gathering last weekend on April 26.

I'm not sure when Vappu started being celebrated again in this country. I don't remember ever hearing about a Vappu dance until sometime in the 1990s. Thanks to the McCarthyism of the 1950s, Vappu was a nonevent in the U.S. for many years. Older Finns who had survived both the tragedy of Karelian fever prior to World War II and the anti-communist fervor of the Eisenhower era wanted nothing to do with a holiday that had become associated in many minds with the Soviets. (Anyone else remember seeing the tv coverage of the Soviet May Day military parades?) But then Communism fell, third and fourth generation Finnish-Americans with no strong memories of the Red Scare reached adulthood and began taking an interest in their ethnic heritage, and Vappu reappeared. Vappu's rebirth is probably connected to the growth of events such as FinnFest, the survival of publications like the Finnish American Reporter and New World Finn, the unlikely persistence of Carl Pellonpaa and Finland Calling (the longest running Finnish language television program in the United States, viewable now via the internet), and maybe the overall appeal of symbolic ethnicity.

Or maybe underneath it all we're all just pagans who love any excuse for a party.

As Carl poika would say, Hei hei. Now get out there and enjoy the day.