Lucia (St Lucy's Day) - 13th December

Classic St. Lucia image by Jenny Nyström
(Swedish artist, 1854-1946)

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Saint Lucy's Day, also called the Feast of Saint Lucy, is a Christian feast day observed on 13 December. The observance commemorates Lucia of Syracuse, an early-fourth-century virgin martyr under the Diocletianic Persecution. According to legend, she brought food and aid to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs, wearing a candle-lit wreath on her head to light her way, leaving both hands free to carry as much food as possible. Because her name means "light" and her feast day had at one time coincided with the shortest day of the year prior to calendar reforms, it is now widely celebrated as a festival of light. Falling within the Advent season, Saint Lucy's Day is viewed as a precursor of Christmastide, pointing to the arrival of the Light of Christ in the calendar on 25 December, Christmas Day.

Saint Lucy's Day is celebrated most widely in Scandinavia, Italy and the island nation of Saint Lucia, each emphasising a different aspect of her story. In Scandinavia, where Lucy is called Santa/Sankta Lucia, she is represented as a woman in a white dress symbolizing a baptismal robe and a red sash symbolizing the blood of her martyrdom, with a crown or wreath of candles on her head. In Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Swedish-speaking regions of Finland, as songs are sung, girls dressed as Saint Lucy carry cookies and saffron buns in procession, which symbolizes bringing the Light of Christ into the world's darkness.

I tried to persuade Barbie and Skipper to dress up as St Lucia with maid, but they weren't happy with the outcome. They complained both about my skills as a dressmaker, and my failure to find any kind of candles to fit the wreaths that I made for them out of garden wire. They also pointed out that with their arms tied like that, they couldn't possibly hold neither trays nor candles! So I reluctantly agreed that we'd probably better skip the whole Lucia thing... Upon which they immediately changed into more comfortable clothes and set off out to look for a Christmas tree instead - in spite of me reminding them that no tree is going to be decorated here until next weekend! 

 

Lucia - a Swedish tradition

  

Today is 13th December, and on this day in Sweden we celebrate Lucia (St Lucy's day). I found this short video on YouTube, with a short introduction in English to the tradition.

I haven't been out to see or listen to any live Lucia celebration this year, but I watched one performance on TV this evening (rerun from the early morning, when I wasn't up yet...)

3rd Advent Sunday and St Lucy's Day

 

Today is the 3rd Advent Sunday; and tomorrow (13th December) here in Sweden we celebrate "Lucia", or St Lucy's day. 

It's been another snowy week here. They say that we can expect milder weather and thaw during the week to come; but yesterday, we just had top-up of more snow... I went for a short walk in the old cemetery nearby, but decided against walking all the way into town. 

 

Instead, I stayed home in the afternoon, and did some more baking. 'Lucia buns' (saffron bread) this time... It's been a few years since I last made those. Sometimes I've made a loaf of saffron bread in my bread machine instead. But the last couple of times I tried that (last year + a couple of weeks ago), the result was not good. The dough rose too much, only to then collapse in the middle, and in the end the loaf turned out a weird shape with a hard crust, falling apart when cut... I decided it's probably time to junk that machine, and go back to the traditional way of baking!

 

I'm out of practice with the manual baking of these buns, though. Below is an image of what I was aiming for (with those on the left above)... Ah well. At least they turned out edible!

 

 

Today, I went for another snowy walk around the cemetery - for air, light and exercise.

 

In the afternoon, I watched a local Lucia/Christmas concert "live online" - from our biggest church downtown, courtesy of the local newspaper, on their website. (Cast from my tablet onto my TV screen.)

 

 

Recipes for Swedish saffron buns and gingerbread biscuits from sweden.se

December 13 - Friday - St Lucy's Day

From Lund Cathedral (Skåne, Sweden)

On 13th December here in Scandiavia we celebrate Lucia or St. Lucy's Day; a festival of light which in the past coincided with the Winter Solstice.

Lucia is celebrated in both private and public contexts. In most towns in Sweden, an official Lucia with a number of maids are elected at the beginning of December. They then spend 2-3 weeks visiting public places like hospitals and nursing homes, singing traditional Lucia songs and Christmas carols. Churches and schools and workplaces etc often have their own Lucia celebrations on the 13th of December as well.

 

Classic Lucia illustration by Jenny Nyström (1854-1946)
(God Jul = Merry Christmas)

St Lucy was a 3rd century martyr in Rome. According to legend she brought food and aid to persecuted Christians hiding in the catacombs, wearing a candle-lit wreath to light her way and leaving her hands free to carry as much food as possible. Nowadays she brings coffee and saffron buns and ginger biscuits - early in the morning while it is still dark.

(If you write Lucia into the search box on top of my blog, it will bring up more Lucia posts of mine from years gone by.)

St Lucia & Christmas Window Shopping

All my outgoing Christmas cards and presents have now been written, wrapped and posted. My Christmas Crib is up on its ususual shelf in the study, with angels singing happily in the window nearby; and St Lucia (St Lucy’s Day, 13th December) has been celebrated.

Actually I celebrated Lucia two days in advance, as the Borås City Lucia with maidens came visiting the park at the housing estate where I live on the 11th. I have blogged about the Lucia tradition many times before – for example back in 2014, when I visited the official Lucia crowning ceremony in the main square in the city centre. This year I did not go to the “big show” in town on the 12th, but was content to get to see and listen to a shorter version closer to home.

However, Thursday the 13th turned out quite a nice day for a walk (frosty but dry), so after posting my last bunch of postcards at the station, I decided to go for a (day-time) “window shopping” walk around the city.

An arts & crafts shop

Coloured lights in the hedge outside a restaurant

▲ A “Fair Trade” shop selling handmade stuff from around the world ▼

▲ A toy shop ▼

(This may well be the cutest Christmas display in town!)

  

▲ A shop selling various kinds of bags

▲ A “deli” selling cheese and tea and sweets and such.
(This is not where I usually buy “my” tea, though.)

Advent Traditions

Can hardly believe that 3rd Advent Sunday is behind us already!!!

Here is a short summary of what I’ve been up to lately:

♥ Baking gingerbread biscuits…
(First time in years that I’ve made “proper” ones, using cutters.)

 

♥ Writing lots of Christmas cards
(Collage below put together from some scanned outgoing ones)

♥ Christmas shopping at the Mall across town
(where I also ran into Santa and his reindeer)

♥ Helping Santa with wrapping presents (to myself) (Why not?)
(Tip: If you got it in a nice bag from the store when you bought it, you can use the bag as wrapping paper  - even if it’s not paper!)

♥ Gradually putting up my Christmas decorations at home.
Also bought a new cushion for the club chair in my living room… The print “sort of” matches my (all-year-round) curtains + cushions on my sofa… (Sometimes it doesn’t take more than a small thing like that to make a difference in a room…)

♥ Been out looking for the Christmas Spirit in the city center.
Some people claim that it seems to have gone missing from there this year; and I have to admit there is some undeniable truth to that rumour…

… So one has to keep looking harder!

There was supposed to be a Lucia parade with dressed-up children on Saturday around noon. Not really a great turnout (considering that we’re a town of around 110.000 inhabitants).

Things improved when Lucia & her maidens showed up, though.

If you’ve been following my blog over a few years, you will know that each year, in most Swedish towns, a St. Lucia + maidens are elected to give concerts for charity around town throughout the weeks before Christmas. Some in public outdoors like this; some in places like churches and schools and hospitals and old people’s homes. They sing Christmas songs and hymns, and special Lucia songs. On St. Lucy’s day on December 13th, many churches and schools etc. also have their own Lucia celebrations (with their own Lucia).

I recorded a video clip of one song; hopefully you’ll be able to both see and hear it by clicking this link: https://youtu.be/Xrusr5xgjYI

…

Linking to: Through My Lens

December 12/13 - Lucia

I have blogged about our celebrations of 13th December as Lucia/St Lucy’s Day several times before – for example last year. This year’s official crowning of a Lucia in my town took place as usual last Saturday; but it was such a dark, wet and stormy day that I was not even sure they’d go through with the event… So I did not go. (To be honest – even if I had known for certain that the ceremony would take place as usual, I would not have gone out in that weather for it!)

Nowadays, the celebration of Lucia also every year causes heated debates in schools and the media etc. An article from The Local Sweden may give you a rough idea: Six things not to say on Sweden’s Lucia Day.

Clipart from forskoleburken.com

For some reason, we (and by “we” I mean all mankind, not just Swedes) seem very prone to assume that traditions have always been what they are – or should always remain as we remember them from our own childhood, or whatever other time in our lives that we consider to have been the best of times…

For me, my most fun Lucia night was probably around 40 years ago, when I was member of a youth gospel choir, and some of us planned a kind of coup. The initiated ones (8 people) gathered very early in the morning, dressed in various Lucia kinds of outfits. And then we went all over town to wake up and surprise one after the other of the other choir members in their homes, and ask them to come along. (I don’t remember details but we must have had a few cars to begin with. And I think we were supposed to sing in the church later or the next day, so that even those not initiated in the prank probably had their outfits ready.) The final visit was to our youth pastor with family. By then there were 25 of us; more or less the whole choir. I know this because of photos with notes in an album. 

Doesn’t feel right to share those photos here, so instead I show you one from one of my grandmother’s albums, which provides evidence that Lucia traditions have not always been about an Italian saint wearing a crown of candles handing out saffron buns – and points, perhaps, to even older magic being connected to this night (once upon a time considered the longest night of the year).  

It is a rare photo, and I’ve never seen another like it. But a note beneath it in the album connects it to “lusse”=Lucia night. The note also gives the name of a village; but it’s not the village where my grandparents lived, and I don’t know who they may have known who lived there, or who the people behind the masks are. There is no date, and the photos have not been put into the album in chronological order either. Possibly the couple sitting in front could be my grandparents, though. In which case I think it would most likely be from around 1929 (which is the year when they got engaged).

PS. This post will have to cover both today and tomorrow. I feel I need a bit of a break! 

PPS. And Windows Live Writer is refusing to post to Blogger again. Driving me mad. I was hoping yesterday that it would just prove temporary but the same thing happened today. I haven't had time to investigate why. It's been quicker to just do the last two posts over again in Blogger...

Winter Days / Lucia

Winter Days [Friday My Town Shoot Out]
How does your town prepare for the coming winter season?
What do your homes look like when the nights are long and days are short?

On 13th December here in Scandiavia we celebrate Lucia (St. Lucy’s Day). In the past (before calendar reforms) this feast coincided with the Winter Solstice, so is a festival of light; and I guess one reason that although the origin is Italian, the day is still celebrated here in Scandinavia because it fits in well with our other Advent/Christmas festivities to brighten up the darkness that otherwise reigns here during the month of December.

Lucia is celebrated both in private and public contexts. In most towns in Sweden, arranged by charity organisations and local newspapers, an official Lucia with a number of maids (often six) is elected at the beginning of December. They then spend 2-3 weeks visiting various public places (like hospitals and nursing homes) singing traditional Lucia songs and Christmas carols.

Borås Lucia 2014 was officially crowned last Saturday. As usual the ceremony took place in the Main Square in front of the Court House – starting at 4 pm, just as the shops close (on Saturdays).

15:41
There are extra market stalls in the square all December.

16:02
A new decoration this year is a double bow of lights with a mistletoe hanging down in the middle – for anyone feeling in romantic mood…

16:21
Lucia and her six maids stand on the stairs of the Court House and sing. Alas in the dark it is hard to zoom in and get clear photos…

 

Classic Lucia image by Swedish artist Jenny Nyström
(1854-1946)