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FINALS GUIDE
Swedish holiday all about the light
BY NORA SIMON
nsimon@kansan.com
St. Lucia Day, a holiday held every year on Dec. 13, celebrates Swedish heritage, tradition and the role of light during a dark time of the year to prepare for the Christmas season.
Modern St. Lucia Day celebrations can be seen in every Swedish town and even in parts of the United States with large Scandinavian populations, such as Minnesota. The holiday involves each town and school picking one girl to dress up like Lucia, who wears an evergreen crown with candles, sings songs, brings food and acts as a benevolent figure. In the Swedish capital, Stockholm, the people even elect a national Lucia to represent the spirit of the holiday.
Rachel Ward, Paola freshman, studied abroad in Eskilstuna, Sweden, during her junior year of high school and said that the Lucia celebration meant a lot to the Swedish people. The selection process for being the Lucia is extremely competitive because Ward attended an art school, and the Lucia must sing well.
"If you're a Lucia at my school, it's a pretty big deal," Ward said. "It almost seems like prom queen or something."
Swedish schools have processions and
concerts in honor of St. Lucia Day, with the students dressing up and singing. Some families also celebrate the holiday in their homes, in which the oldest daughter dresses as Lucia and brings coffee to her parents.
Stefan Bergstrom, a German Languages
and Literatures lecturer originally from Gävle, Sweden, said that as a child, he would participate in the festivities. Boys can dress as star boys, toten, or gingerbread men, he said.
The Swedish St. Lucia Day began as a celebration of the Catholic patron saint of blindness, Lucy, whose feast day is on Dec. 13. Lucy lived in Sicily in 284 and died as a martyr because she refused to renounce her Christian faith in the Roman Empire. The story behind why a Catholic saint came to be celebrated in Sweden, mostly a Lutheran country, involves many different myths and legends, according to Florence Ekstrand's book, "Lucia: Child of Light." Today, however, St. Lucia Day has taken on a more secular meaning.
longest and darkest day of the year, Bergstrom said. The Lucia wears a crown with candles and carries a candle. So in pagan times, her holiday would have represented more of the relationship between light and dark, good and evil.
"Certainly I did like the food part of it quite a bit. The songs are all very pretty and are familiar to everyone."
STEFAN BERGSTROM German Languages Lecturer
Before the Gregorian calendar moved the winter solstice to Dec. 20, Dec. 13 was the
"Lucia comes from lux, meaning light, but it can also mean Lucifer," Bergstrom said.
Ann Hannu, Uppsala, Sweden senior, said she celebrated St. Lucia Day more when she was younger at school, but the holiday provides a time before Christmas to share traditions with family and friends, including singing songs, baking, decorating
for Christmas and reminiscing about childhood memories.
"For me it's really about the feeling and kind of the pre-Christmas feeling," Hannu said. "When you were smaller, it was a really big thing because everyone was quite excited, and you would prepare for months. It's still good memories, even though I'm not celebrating it in the same way anymore."
Food and music perhaps remain the most
important and special parts of this Swedish holiday. Saffron buns (lussekatter), coffee, spiced malt wine (glögg) and ginger snaps (pepparkakor) constitute the most traditional and special foods eaten during St. Lucia Day, Bergstrom said.
"Certainly I did like the food part of it quite a bit," Bergstrom said. "The songs are all very pretty and are familiar to everyone."
Music and song especially contribute to the overall feeling of cheer during this holiday, Ward said.
"My favorite part about it was probably when I went to a concert in Stockholm in an old castle and they sang songs by candlelight," Ward said. "It's a fun way to get into the Christmas spirit."
The interplay between pagan and Christian traditions and the folklore surrounding this holiday make it a holiday steeped in tradition and myth, according to Ekstrand's book. Bergstrom said St. Lucia Day continued to be significant in Sweden because of these strong traditions.
"It is a very dark time of the year, and it's a time to be festive," Bergstrom said. "It's supposed to counteract that. It's almost like a challenge against the dark on one level, and of course there's a lot of good food connected with it. And I'm sure that keeps this alive."
DECEMBER 15,2008
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAS