In the summer of 2020, we were slowly coming out of COVID lockdown. Our interactions with those outside our family were still limited and mostly outdoors. In an effort to have our daughters see their friends, we decided to host a Midsummer cookout with a family that also had three daughters. Each family had a daughter who regularly attended the Folger Shakespeare Library Family Days and who loved A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
We decorated our backyard with a maypole made from a closet hanaging rod and ribbon. We placed real flowers, fake flowers, and paper flowers everywhere. We strung fairy lights wherever we could.
My middle child researched how to make fairy wings from wire hangers and old tights. Here’s a tutorial. I also provided grapevines and artificial flowers, which the girls used to make flower crowns. Here’s a tutorial.
Our dinner was simple and not particularly inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I grilled hamburgers and sausages, which we ate with fruit and a couscous salad. Our dessert was a lemon cheesecake mousse, which was very much enjoyed.
After dinner the girls danced around the maypole to Vaughan Williams’ Seventeen Come Sunday. The Shakespeare-loving daughters from each family performed the scene at the beginning of Act II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream between Puck and the Fairy. Our youngest performed Bottom’s speech.
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