Östersunds Lucia Tradition

Every December Östersund, as well as all other towns in Sweden, hold a type of beauty contest- and the chosen girl becomes Lucia for the town. There are dinners and interviews and the candidates have their pictures as well as a description put in the paper for the town to vote.

Early in the morning on December 13th (about 6:30) she and her train of attendants move throughout the town, singing christmas carrols and traditional swedish lucia songs. Glögg and pepperkokas (ginger cookies)are consumed here. Glögg is warm wine with spices added to it- tradition says that in days gone by, the locals put spices in the old red wine to hide the vinegar flavour so they could still consume it. Raisons and nuts are put in aswell. I found the glögg alittle too strong in the spices.

Tradition is, in each family one of the girls takes on the role of Lucia and gets up before everyone else, dawns on the outfit and serves glögg and cookies to everyone in bed.

That morning I went with Lina and her mom to see Erik sing in a school Lucia show. Erik is Lina's younger brother (who is 11). It was very good.

Unfortunately none of my pictures turned out due to lack of light, so the pictures posted are from the internet.