"Lucia" is part of the winter and advent celebrations in Sweden. Named after a third century Italian saint who was tortured and killed for her faith, the celebrations on Dec 13th are now a deeply traditional part of Swedish culture. I guess this would be Sweden's equivalent of a beauty pageant in which one girl (never a boy!) is selected to bear the candles in her hair. A must in all the schools. The boys are allowed secondary roles by wearing the pointed hats with stars and white robes.At work on Friday we celebrated with our Luciafest - a traditional Christmas dinner. Lots of varieties of marinated herring, potato gratin with fresh herring, herring-beet sallad, smoked salmon, ham and mustard, Swedish meatballs and little hot dogs (I don't like those). True to tradition, green vegetables are not part of the meal. Imported vegetables have only become popular in the last few decades, I believe, and are most definitely untraditional.
Brännvin and beer accompanied the herring, of course. And we sang the usual drinking songs interspersed with the Lucia song and a Christmas song.
2 comments:
I grew up with this in Montana, which was heavily Danish and Swedish. I liked the Lucia buns (saffron buns) and ginger cookies, but I have no idea how traditional they are with "the old country".
My understanding is the girls no longer use real candles in the crown - just lame battery powered lamps
I'd forgotten to mention the saffron buns with raisins we ate for Lucia because we had them early in the day. "Lussekatter" - sleeping cats - are a must at Lucia time. Yum! The "pepparkakor" - ginger cookies - are eaten all through the advent.
Schools are forbidden to let girls have burning candles in their hair - thus the lame battery lights. However, the adult Lucias will still carry real candles.
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