Today is a ‘squeeze day’ in Sweden. What, you may wonder, is a squeeze day?
– It is not a day when everybody goes around hugging each other. Especially now during the pandemic.
– Nor is it a day when people pinch each other’s cheeks or rear ends.
– It is not either a day of drinking copious amounts of fresh citrus juice.
No, a ‘squeeze day’, or ‘klämdag’ in Swedish, is a day of the week that falls between a public holiday and a weekend.
In Sweden, when a public holiday occurs on a Tuesday or a Thursday, a common custom is to take the day between the holiday and the weekend as a day off. Sometimes this is subsidized by the employer. In English, this is called a ‘bridge day’ but in Swedish it’s cutely referred to as a ‘squeeze day’.
As yesterday (Thursday) was a public holiday, many people are also off work today.
Watching the Swedes 
It looks very familiar for us.