A grand two-day Midsummer celebration has been held at Nääs since the handicraft school was founded in the late 1800s. The celebration continues to be held annually and is a living cultural heritage.
Originally, it was the course participants who organized the festivities. A document from 1894 describes how the participants would march up to “Stora Nääs” (what we call the castle building) to dance around the maypole. That same year, 1894, it is also described how it rained too much, so the dance at the castle had to be cancelled. However, a festive meal was laid out in the seminary building with “buns, oranges, pastries, confectionery and nuts…” Otto Salomon participated in the celebration and August Abrahamson was also present, “kind, simple, cheerful, loving and venerable”. Midsummer Day was also dedicated as a festive day to honor “love for the fatherland”. After Abrahamson’s death in 1898, the dance was moved down to the field at Källnääs and later to the field at Lekhuset when it was erected in 1905. The celebration is still held there to this day.
After the school closed in 1966, it is Näässamfundet together with August Abrahamson’s Foundation and a few other organizations that arrange the Midsummer celebration at Nääs. It remains a large public festival over two days with many old traditions and a historic atmosphere.
