A few weeks before Easter, the Germans from the “Kurpfalz” and its surroundings, such as the Neckar Valley, celebrate another spring event. It’s called “Sommertagszug”, which I loosely translated here as “summer day parade”.
This special event, the Sommertagszug, is celebrated about three weeks before Easter (the exact date may vary from town to town due to local traditions), on Laetare Sunday (Sonntag Laetare), also called Mid-Lent (Mittfasten, or in French, la mi-carême), in the southwestern provinces of Germany. It is a Frühlingfest (a spring festival) to welcome summer and tell winter that its time has come and it must go.
A Zug (train parade) made up of many children dressed as ducklings with yellow raincoats and duck heads as hats parades through the city holding large Bretzels affixed to the tips of sticks decorated with multicolored ribbons. Some of these large pretzels have a boiled egg in the middle.
There is also, drawn by some merry men and costumed children, a snowman standing on a dry tree made of straw representing old winter. And further on, on a green tree decorated with garlands of brightly colored eggs, we can see a rooster and a crane that represent spring and summer. During the parade, the children are singing a song that says winter is leaving, summer is here.
At the end of the parade, the winter tree and snowman are burned in a large bonfire with everyone standing around and happily singing that winter has died, we have been delivered from death and “Strih, Strah, Stroh, Der Sommerdag is do” (summer day is here).
