The Truth About Lucia

Christmastime in Sweden is a big deal, from what I can tell—possibly even more important than in the U.S., where political correctness has ushered in all sorts of weirdness about holiday equality (see Kwanzaa, Festivus). There are a lot of really strange holiday traditions here, which I plan to chronicle as they unfold in the next few weeks.

The first thing worth noting is the shattering of my innocence about Santa Lucia. Since I was a little girl, I've heard about the Santa Lucia tradition in Sweden, and it always seemed really sweet and uniquely European. I pictured rows of softly singing blond children walking through an ancient cathedral dressed all in white, with wreaths of candles on their heads. The saint after which the day was named must have been some Mother Theresa-like character who offered comfort to the poor and sick—especially if the poor and sick happened to be adorable blond children.

Well, today, I was walking down one of Stockholm's main shopping streets, and in a store window I saw a mannequin clad in white lingerie and a slinky white robe, with a wreath of candles on her head. Which for some reason seemed really shocking! Christmas is so plastic and commercial in the U.S. that no one blinks an eye at red and white fur "Santa" lingerie, or stupid Fredrick's of Hollywood elf costumes, but Lucia seemed too pure and virginal to me to be swinging around a stripper pole like that.

Mainly, it seems that Lucia's job is to make people fat. During the weeks around the her day, Swedes eat a lot of gingerbread cookies, which reportedly "make you kinder." Riiiight, and drinking glögg makes me smarter.

But wait, there's more. Lucia isn't just enacted by slutty mannequins and little girls in churches. There's a national Lucia, crowned during a pageant situation for besting her competitors with a combination of good looks and singing skills. Naturally, all the contestants have that perfectly airbrushed beauty queen appearance and make canned speeches about world peace and kittens, but they're also involved in charity work. The title is a big one—somewhat akin to being Miss USA—so they even have a PR team and a marketing tour. But there is an interesting element to all this: One of the top five candidates for 2008, Nicole Wångne (pictured above), happens to be a brown-skinned person (I think she's of South Asian or Indian decent, but she didn't mention her heritage in her bio). I'm so hoping she gets chosen. This could be the groundbreaking year when an black American is voted into the White House and a black Swede wears the White Dress!

So, who was this Saint Lucia who gets a day named after her? Well, she was a Sicilian girl who may or may not have traveled to Sweden several centuries ago. She gained sainthood thus: A man fell in love with her and asked her to marry him, but she didn't like him, so she said no. He became angry and threatened to set her on fire, so she prayed to God for fire-retardance. The jilted suitor set Lucia on fire and she didn't burn, so he stuck a knife in her throat instead. She then bled profuely and sang beautiful songs for three days before dying of brutal stab wounds. Also, she was known for being a kind person. The end!

And that, kiddies, is why we celebrate Lucia, the Queen of Light.