Celebrating Santa Lucia

13 December is when the Swedes celebrate St Lucia! This is done through the tradition of Lussevaka – to stay awake on the night between 12th till 13th and guard oneself against being taken by Lucifer lord of darkness (!) by having an all night party ;-). This is still carried out today mostly by the younger population having great parties. (When the light then arrives with the morning you are safe again.) But since Shawn and I are no longer that young and strong for an allnighter we settled for the more traditional celebration;
A procession/a ceremony where a girl is elected to portray Lucia... Wearing a white gown with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head, she walks at the head of a procession of women, each holding a candle and singing Christmas songs. There are nowadays also boys in the procession, playing different roles associated with Christmas. Some may be dressed in the same kind of white robe, but with a cone-shaped hat decorated with golden stars, called stjärngossar (star boys); some may be dressed up as "tomtenissar", carrying lanterns; and some may be dressed up as gingerbread men. With Noah's new found love for ginger bread cookies, you would think that the latter would be the natural choice of costume but we went for the tomtenisse outfit this year. Worth mentioning, is that when Noah saw the boys with the cone-shaped hats he bursted out, with a smile on his face: "GLASS!!" (icecream) so maybe that will be his pick next year!!

Today, we took part in the Lucia celebrations held by the church down the road from us. Below is a short video from the kids Lucia procession. We have been practicing at the weekly sing/play group but Noah was too amazed by the experience to take tune.