Sankta Lucia Fest

Today is St. Lucy's Day. I explained some of the history of this in a previous post (Typical Tuesday) so I'm not going to repeat it - especially since the story still isn't exactly clear to me.

All of the new people in the department are required to be in the Luciatorg (literally = Lucia train) which we've been practicing for weeks now. The picture to the right is the beginning of the procession, with our Lucia on the right and her maids behind her. I was also one of the maids (see pic below). In addition to Lucia and her maids, there were starboys, gingerbread men, and Santa's helpers (all can be seen in pictures below). As we processed in, we sang the Sankta Lucia song. Then we sang a "welcome song" (not only in Swedish but we repeated it in the languages of everyone in the torg - English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Catalan, Italian, and I'm probably missing one or 2). After that we sang a song about gingerbread men and a serious Christmas carol. The 3 guys in the train, who are all serious singers, did another song in 3 part harmony (it was hardcore and impressive). We finished the show with a song about Santa's helpers and then exited singing the Lucia song again. All of the songs were in Swedish so the papers we're holding in the pictures are the lyrics.

I have no idea what I'm looking at. I think I was looking for my lab because I gave them my camera. Clearly, I was totally off!

These are the starboys. Yes, their cone hats are actually meeting posters! They were hilarious because 2/3 are very tall and with the cones, they couldn't go through doorways and they kept getting stuck on the ceiling.

the gingerbread man and women

While we did this, everyone else in the department enjoyed Luciabulle (saffron and raisin buns - pic below), pepperkakor (gingersnaps), and glogg (mulled wine).

The major twist to this year's Luciatorg was that most of the torg and audience was hungover from the department Christmas party last night. This is getting long and the party last night was eventful enough for it's own post. To be continued........