St. Lucia Day: Lucia in Sweden and Beyond

St. Lucia Day, Lucia in Swedish, is December 13: a morning or evening when a girl in a white gown, with a crown of candles in her hair, leads a slow procession of singers out of the dark. It’s one of Sweden’s best-loved days, kept in schools, churches, offices and care homes, and Swedes abroad carry it with them wherever they live. It’s also the feast of an Italian saint, Lucy of Syracuse, and Italy has customs of its own. Here is what happens, where it comes from, and how to keep it far from Sweden.

When is St. Lucia Day?

St. Lucia Day is December 13, every year, whatever the day of the week. In Sweden the processions happen on the day itself, often before dawn by tradition, though for practical reasons many are now held in the evening, and schools and choirs give performances in the days around it. It falls about two weeks before Christmas and marks, for many Swedes, the real start of the Christmas season.

The date matters. In the old Julian calendar, the night before December 13 was counted the longest of the year. Sweden changed calendars in 1753, and the solstice moved later in the month, but Lucia kept its date, and its association with the darkest time of the year.

What is St. Lucia Day?

It’s two things at once: a Christian saint’s day and a Swedish festival of light.

The saint. Lucia, or Lucy, was a young Christian of Syracuse in Sicily, who died for her faith around the year 304. Her name comes from the Latin lux, “light”. Her feast was kept on December 13 in medieval Sweden as elsewhere in Europe.

The Swedish festival. The modern Swedish Lucia owes surprisingly little to the saint’s story. Sweden’s National Historical Museums put it plainly: Lucy’s martyrdom has no connection with the Swedish Lucia traditions, which took shape much later. Folk belief made Lucia night a dangerous one: supernatural beings were abroad, animals could speak, and people stayed up, ate several breakfasts and gave the livestock extra feed. In agrarian Sweden, young people dressed up as Lucia figures, lussegubbar, and went from farm to farm singing for food and drink, which the clergy did not always approve of. Sweden’s official website describes today’s Lucia as a blend of these strands, from the Sicilian martyr to Swedish folk legend.

How the white-gowned Lucia appeared

The first recorded appearance of a Lucia in white, with candles, was in a country house in 1764. The custom of Lucia serving coffee and buns dates from the 1880s, and around the same time the Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm began holding Lucia celebrations. It spread across the country in the 20th century, when schools and local associations took it up: Stockholm crowned its first Lucia in 1927, and other towns soon followed. The quieter, organized procession replaced the rowdier night-time visiting of the past.

Sweden’s St. Lucia Day traditions: the procession

What people do: The Luciatåg, the Lucia procession, enters in darkness, singing. At its head walks Lucia, in a long white gown, wearing “light in her hair”: a wreath with a crown of candles, today usually battery-powered. Behind her come her handmaidens, tärnor, each with a candle; the star boys, stjärngossar, in white, with tall paper cones on their heads and stars on sticks; and, in children’s processions, gingerbread figures, pepparkaksgubbar, and little Christmas elves, tomtenissar, with lanterns.

The song that opens and closes most processions is Sankta Lucia, and almost every Swede knows it by heart. Other Lucia songs and Christmas carols fill the middle, all on the same theme: light coming into the darkness.

Who is Lucia? For years, towns and newspapers elected a local or national Lucia by public vote, which had the feel of a beauty contest. That has largely gone. Today schools often choose by drawing lots, and in younger classes there may be several Lucias at once.

Saffron buns and glögg

No Lucia is complete without lussekatter, saffron buns, golden yellow, usually rolled into an S shape with a raisin at the center of each curl. Many Swedes wouldn’t dream of eating one outside Lucia and the weeks before Christmas. They come with gingerbread cookies and a small cup of glögg, mulled wine (there are versions without alcohol), or coffee.

St. Lucia Day in Italy

Lucia is also a much-loved saint in Italy, kept in two quite different ways. Syracuse, her home city, honors her with a procession through the streets on her feast day. In parts of the north she brings presents: children there wait for her and her donkey on the night of December 12, much as children elsewhere wait for Father Christmas. Our guide to the Italian Christmas season has more.

Not to be confused with Saint Lucia’s National Day

The same date is also a holiday in the Caribbean. The island nation of Saint Lucia is named after St. Lucy, and it celebrates its National Day on December 13, with a Festival of Lights and Renewal held the night before. So if you search for “St. Lucia Day” and find beaches, that’s why. This page is about the saint’s day as it’s kept in Sweden and in Italy.

Lucia beyond Sweden

Lucia celebrations centered on light, two weeks before Christmas, belong to the Nordic countries, and Sweden’s is the best known. It has also spread much further. In London, the Swedish Church’s Lucia celebrations are so popular they’re booked months ahead, and there are Lucia events in the United States, Germany, Latvia and China, sometimes sung by people who learned the Swedish words out of affection for the custom. Swedish immigrants brought it to America: Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, founded by Swedish immigrants, has held a St. Lucia festival since 1941.

Keeping Lucia far from home

Lucia needs very little: a white gown, a few candles and a song. If your family is Swedish, or half-Swedish, and lives far from Sweden:

• Bring breakfast in the dark. A classic home custom, dating from the 1880s, is a Lucia waking the household with coffee and saffron buns. One of the children in a white nightgown with a tray, and the rest of the family pretending to be asleep, is a lovely way to start December 13.
• Use battery candles. Swedes themselves have mostly moved to battery-powered crowns, for good reason: real candles and long hair don’t mix.
• Bake lussekatter the day before. Saffron, a little patience and an S-shaped twist; children love rolling them.
• Find a procession. Look for a Swedish church, a Scandinavian society or a college with Swedish roots near you. If there isn’t one, Visit Sweden suggests watching a Lucia concert online.
• Call home at the right hour. If the family in Sweden is watching the Lucia broadcast, watch together.

A Christmas greeting in Swedish

After Lucia, Christmas is close, and so is God jul, Merry Christmas in Swedish. Our guide to writing your Christmas wishes in Swedish explains the words and how to address grandparents, and our guide to the rest of the Swedish Christmas follows the season through to January 13.

Cards for the season of light

Our Lucia card paints the procession on a starry night: girls in white carrying their candles up a snowy hill to a little wooden church, Lucia herself in her crown of candles at the end of the line, a fox watching by the gate. It belongs to our Nordic cards, beside a red cottage with candle arches in its windows. Your own words go beneath the scene, and you can schedule the card to arrive on the morning of December 13.