Happy Lucia Day from Sweden, where you’re never more than two months away from a major holiday, and only a few thousand years separate a beautiful modern tradition from a brutal (and widely forgotten) historical event.
Around the country today, parents were woken up by their children dressed in white and serving them breakfast in bed. (This holiday will most definitely be celebrated in our family when, a very long time from now, we have kids.) Then it’s off to school, where the children will participate in at least one Lussetåg, or Lucia Parade. They may even visit hospitals and local businesses, and many children’s choirs do public performances in the local churches, which will probably see as much or more public on Lucia Day as they will on Christmas or Easter.
I have to admit, from an outsider’s perspective, the Lussetåg looks like a slightly cultish Halloween parade. Both the boys and the girls are dressed all in white, but the girls wear wreaths on their heads and carry candles while the boys have bedazzled cone-shaped hats perched on their heads and carry what look like wands with stars shooting out of them. The boys look a lot like Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice… magic wizards! Read more » >>
