First summerday in Iceland

Icelanders celebrate their first summer day today or "sumardagurinn fyrsti." Has nothing to do with the weather but with our old calendar, it is the first day in the summer month Harpa. It is usually the first Thursday after the 18th April.

Sumardagurinn fyrsti is a holiday in Iceland and used to be dedicated to young women, where young men would say which one they liked and later known as children day, where children could go to different towns. There is always some celebration and festival on this day, especially for children, a play, music acts, sport, etc. People also used to give presents on this day, in fact it was before they started giving christmas presents. 

My family would celebrate this day by going to the neighbourhood festival or we would sleep in and then play sports in our backyard. Man i miss my old backyard, we used to have a swing, football net, basketball ring and a hot tub. It was perfect for the summer time. We would invite our friends and play. So much fun. I would love to go back.


I like this holiday. To celebrate the coming of summer. In Iceland it´s dark all the time except for a couple of hours and the opposite in the summer time so you can imagine that Icelanders welcome summertime, the sun, with a bang.

Gleðilegan sumardaginn fyrsta