Before dawn on 13 December, across Sweden, processions of white-robed singers move through churches, schools and offices behind a girl wearing a crown of lit candles. St Lucia’s Day is the most visually striking morning in the European Christmas calendar, and it began as a fight against the dark.
Light against the longest night
Under the old Julian calendar, 13 December fell on the longest night of the year, and Swedes marked it with fire and song long before Christianity arrived — after which the legends of Lucia, a fourth-century Sicilian saint whose name shares a root with lux, light, were folded into the existing midwinter custom. The modern form is precise: the procession led by a Lucia in white gown, red sash and candle crown, followed by white-clad attendants and star boys, singing traditional Lucia songs into the dark.
Saffron and glögg
The catering is as codified as the costume: lussekatter, S-shaped saffron buns studded with raisins, and glögg, the Swedish mulled wine — served around the singing. It is a festival a Briton recognises at once and yet has no equivalent of: imagine the office falling silent at 7am for candlelit part-singing, and then everyone quietly going back to their desks.
Source: sweden.se (official site of Sweden) and Linköping University
Wearing the light
Candles on the head are, on balance, not recommended for an office party — the British compromise puts the lights in the knitwear instead (a solved problem since 1882). White-and-light is the Lucia palette:
More glow in the Light-Up & Sparkle collection.