Lucia day in Scandinavia is on December 13th – a very special day in the Scandinavian calendar.  Originally, St Lucia celebrated “the bearer of light” and the tradition today is still that a train of people dressed in white will walk in the dark bearing candles, singing Christmas carols.
A girl is elected to portray Lucia, wearing a white gown with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head, she walks at the head of a procession of the children, each holding a candle.
When the Scandinavian countries were Catholic, the night of Lucia was celebrated just as many other saints’ days were. The tradition continued after the Protestant Reformation in the 1520s and 1530s. According to the Julian calendar[citation needed], the night of Lucia was the longest night of the year. This is likely to be the reason why the tradition has lived on in the Nordic countries in particular, as the nights in November and December are very dark and long before the snow has fallen, and the idea of light overcoming darkness is thus appealing.

A saffron bun, or “lussekatt” (literally “Lucy cat”, after Saint Lucy), is a rich yeast dough bun that is flavoured with saffron and cinnamon or nutmeg and contains currants. In Sweden and Norway, no cinnamon or nutmeg is used in the bun, and raisins are used instead of currants. The buns are baked into many traditional shapes, of which the simplest is a reversed S-shape. They are traditionally eaten during Advent, and especially on Saint Lucy’s Day, December 13. Here are our recipe.
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