It’s Lucia today, December 13th. I’ve always loved this weird tradition we have in Sweden. If you look up who Lucia was, then it’s an Italian saint (just google her). But the Swedish tradition actually has nothing to do with the saint, it just happens to be that Lucia is remembered on Dec 13, the same day as the winter solstice. The Lucia celebration in Sweden seems to have history from Germany but has also developed throughout the years into what today is the Swedish tradition. It’s a woman in a white dress and candles on her head = she brings the light when it’s dark in Sweden. It’s now part of Christmas every year.
After Lucia and her little line of people (santas, gingerbread, terns and star boys ….wow, terrible google translate, haha, but I don’t know what else to call them) have come to sing and play music in schools or at work places in the morning of the 13th, everyone is usually having a morning fika together with saffron buns, gingerbread and glogg (Swedish mulled wine). It’s a cute tradition, but a little weird if you listen to what the lyrics in the songs are, a lot of them doesn’t make sense. I still sing them all through the whole month of December every year. I was in the choir my whole childhood and we sang the same things every Christmas, they still do. Although, I think some people in Sweden wants to get rid of this tradition or at least have boys to be the woman in the dress. I haven’t really followed the Lucia discussions so I don’t know what’s going on. Why change thing we like, is all I can ask…
I was chosen to be Lucia for the school in 5th grade, the first Lucia to
sing a solo instead of reading a boring poem, which I was very proud of