Sancta Lucia Celebration - Swedish Embassy, Moscow

Traditional Swedish Sankta Lucia (in Swedish) celebration

December 13, 2017

I love this dress!

 Hosted by the Ambassador of Sweden, H.E. Mr. Peter Ericson, we were invited by our wonderful friend Jan (pronounced more like "yahn") to take part in the traditional annual Sancta Lucia (Saint Lucy) celebration. Sancta Lucia was a young, Italian Christian martyr.  Many countries honour the Saint with a ceremony. 

The Swedish story goes that on the longest night of the shortest day of the year a light suddenly appeared on Lake Vanern. It was a large, white boat filled with food and at the helm was a beautiful young woman in a white gown wearing a crown of lights. Lucia had come to rescue the starving Swedes. 

I love experiencing these unique ceremonies of various countries! 

Sancta Lucia is an annual candlelit procession held on December 13th.

Boys and girls dress in full-length, white gowns and sing songs together while holding candles. The one chosen to represent Sancta Lucia wears candles on her head. I looked, they're pretty firmly in place because I know you're all concerned for the her safety. 

Competition to be Sancta Lucia can be tough. Sweden is opposed to privilege and doesn't like to rank people. Because of this you will rarely see any sort of beauty pageant. The competition to become Sancta Lucia is an exception to this.

Each of her handmaidens carry candles. Only Sancta Lucia wears the wreath of candles on her head. The boys wear pointy hats and carry stars on sticks. 

The Sancta Lucia song is the most memorable and catchy. I found myself singing it all night! All Swedes know this song by heart. Below is a video link with the English words also.

 https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Santa+Lucia+in+Sweden+YouTube&&view=detail&mid=4B9191789C4D427F7BED4B9191789C4D427F7BED&FORM=VRDGAR

The celebrations include ginger snaps and saffron-flavoured buns (lussekatter shaped like a curled up cat with raisen eyes). They were delicious! You eat them with gloog (like mulled wine) or coffee.

https://sweden.se/culture-traditions/saffransbullar-and-pepparkakor/

(see above website for the recipe for the buns)

Here they come!

This little guy was SO bored! lol He didn't do much singing... just playing with his star

There they go...

I nearly had an accident with the candle-lite walkway! lol 🔥