Lillian Maksymowicz

I remember it very well.  It is celebrated on December 13 the shortest and darkest day of the year in Sweden according to the old Julian calendar.  And when the Western world switched to the current Gregorian calendar, we still kept to December 13.  The folklore tells us that Sankta Lucia came from Sicily and was a patron for the blind and she travelled to the northern land to spread light and warmth to the dark, cold times there. The Swedes love to celebrate Lucia and she appears in all public and private workplaces, schools, hospitals, retirement homes, actually everywhere imaginable on that day.  She is dressed in a white gown with a red sash tied around her waist and on her head she wears a crown of live candles. Sometimes she appears with a train of maidens and star boys all dressed in white holding live candles in their hands while singing the Sankta Lucia song.  It was magical and so beautiful.

I remember as the eldest daughter getting up early in the dark morning with my other two sisters.  We would dress up in white gowns getting the candles lit and proceed down the hallway to my parents room waking them up to our singing the Lucia song, bringing them a tray with coffee, saffron buns and ginger cookies. Then we would go to school where there would be another celebration.   And finally, at night, we would go to the center of town where Sankta Lucia and her maidens and star boys would be riding in a big parade ending up at the town square where the Mayor would honor her with a speech and present her with a necklace.  Who then was the town’s Lucia?  Well, early in the fall the newspaper would announce that you could send in a photo of a pretty young girl, which would be posted, limiting the number of contestants to eight.  The girl with the most votes would win.  Although I never was the winner.  I remember that one year after I had moved from my home town to a University town up north where I was working as an Intern at the Medical Center, I was on duty on the 13th of December, and I was the Sankta Lucia on my ward.  I remember how thrilled my patients were that the Lucia had visited them.  So it is that now, living in America, every year at this time my thoughts  go to Sweden and the Sankta Lucia celebrations there.