Lucia Celebration

If you have been here at Scandi for some years, you know by now that when it comes to Scandinavian traditions, you know that what is important about our traditions is not so much the “why’s” but more the “how’s”. We cannot always tell you why we celebrate some things, but we can certainly tell you all about how it is celebrated. Lucia is one of those traditions.

We know this is a celebration of light during the longest and darkest day of the year (well, it’s 8 days before, but hey, it’s about the “how’s”, remember?:) Lucia is a Festival of Lights that is intertwined with both pre-Christianity rituals and beliefs in magic and the respect and fear of nature and spirits- mixed in with the celebration of an Italian saint, St. Lucia, who sacrificed her life for standing up for herself…don’t google the story, just take my word for it:) -seems completely jumbled and unclear, perhaps a bit iffy and dark? It is, for us too, but we celebrate it happily in traditional costumes and eat gingerbread cookies, sweet saffron buns and drink mulled wine, naturally.

All jokes aside, this is a beloved Scandi school tradition that we under normal circumstances share with our senior friends at one of our neighborhood senior homes, typically on December 12th, and on December, 13th we share with all of our families and neighborhood schools at St. Michael’s on 9th and Jersey Ave. In Sweden, this celebration is broadcasted on TV early in the morning on Dec 13th and schools and even plenty of companies, hospitals and senior homes participate by dressing up and singing about everything from gingerbread cookies (it’s a thing), mice and gnomes sneaking around people’s homes and you’ve got it, Saint Lucia from Italy, bringing light to the darkest time of the year.