St Lucia

Lucy was a young Christian woman from Syracuse, on the island of Sicily. She died for her faith about the year 304. Her name, Lucia, comes from the Latin word lux, which means light.¹ The old story says she wanted to give her family’s wealth to the poor.³ The stories told about her were written down long after she lived.^1,3 An old inscription in Syracuse is the first solid sign that she was a real person, and by the 500s Christians far from Sicily honored her.¹

Her day is December 13. In the Middle Ages the old Julian calendar put that date close to the shortest day of the year, so her feast became a festival of light in the dark season.^1,4 Sweden changed to the newer calendar in 1753 and the shortest day moved to about December 21, but Lucia stayed on December 13.⁴

In Sweden the oldest report of a girl in white bringing candles and food on Lucia morning is from 1764, at an estate in the west of the country.² The big public celebration of today grew in the late 1920s, when a Stockholm newspaper held a contest to choose a Lucia for the city.^4,2 At breakfast families eat lussekatter, saffron buns, often shaped like an S with raisins. The shape came from a Dutch Christmas bread brought to Gothenburg in the 1600s.² In Syracuse a silver statue of Lucy is carried through the streets, and people eat boiled wheat.⁴