Santa Lucia in Malmö

This last weekend I had another opportunity to visit the city of Malmö, Sweden. I was fortunate enough to go on the 13^th of December, which is Santa Lucia Day in Sweden and other Scandinavian Counties. St. Lucia is a festival day closely associated with Christmas, as well as other Scandinavian winter traditions. As a person, St. Lucy was a Christian martyr who dies sometime around the year 300 C.E., however the festival in her honor takes place on the same day as Lussinatta, which is a celebration that has origins in pre-Christian Scandinavian mythology. The two traditions were merged to create the modern Swedish tradition of Santa Lucia.

There was a great Christmas Market in Malmö during the daylight hours, with a variety of different food and gift stands selling anything from candied almonds and mini-doughnuts, to woven hats and scarves. However, once darkness falls, which is at about 3:30 PM, the real festival begins. Candles and torches burn in every square and plaza, and all the roads and storefronts have garland and LED light decorations. There is an ice-skating rink and a Ferris wheel. Finally, at 6:30, the Santa Lucia procession arrives in the main square of the city. There was a band, horse-drawn carriages, and a procession of children bearing torches. Traditionally, each town selects the most beautiful girl to become Santa Lucia, who wears a headdress of candles and fur-boughs. In Malmö, Santa Lucia arrives with a small choir and a plastic and glass headdress. Once they arrived, they went up to a balcony, and spent 30 minutes singing Swedish Christmas Carols. As they sang, it began to snow, making the experience even more delightful. It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, watching a Santa Lucia festival in Malmö. Although it is a tradition that has spread over many parts of the world, especially in Swedish-American communities, it really was wonderful to experience it in a country where it has been celebrates for hundreds of years.

Malmö Christmas Market

Santa Lucia is a festival of lights

The Procession

Malmö's Santa Lucia-2009

A video with three of the songs we heard while it was snowing.

The sound quality isn't great, but it should give you an idea of what we heard.

(Note: It takes about 20 seconds for the music to start.)

An Excursion to Malmö

Today, I went on a trip to Malmö, Sweden with several of my DIS friends. We went because we needed to do some winter shopping, and it is much more affordable than in Copenhagen. The exchange rate is better, and the taxes are lower, so it was defiantly worth the trip. A train ticket costs about $25, so it doesn’t take much to make the trip fit into your budget. We took the train from Copenhagen, and about forty-five minuets we were in Sweden. The train goes through a tunnel partway under the water, and the rest of the way it runs on a bridge. Once we were in Malmö, we found a map that would lead us to the shopping areas of the city. We walked down the main pedestrian street (something like Strøget in Copenhagen), and we stumbled upon an international food fair. Much to our surprise, it was the same fair that was at Gammeltorv (in Copenhagen) just a few weeks ago. We even recognized some of the same salespeople. It seems they travel from city to city in the summer, and Malmö happened to be right after Copenhagen. We all got lunch, and ate on a bench in a small square next to a cemetery.

We eventually found our way to a large mall, which had a bunch of very nice stores. The prices we very reasonable, much like what you would find in the United States in a nicer department store. However, the sizes are all over the place. It seems that there is really no standard, as sometimes they were much larger than in America, while other times they were not. I ended up finding two shirts, a sweater, a nice winter coat (for my trip to Russia), a scarf, and gloves. I should be set for the winter now, with the exception of some warmer boots, which I think I will try to find a little later in the year.

Overall it was a nice trip to Sweden, and was very much worth the time and travel expense. I would like to go back sometime to see some of the architecture and history of Malmö, as I didn’t have time to see much today. Door-to-door, the trip was a little over 12 hours for me, partly because I live so far from Copenhagen, and took the busses today instead of biking. There was somewhat of a delay in the train back to Copenhagen, but we are not sure why, as the announcements were in Swedish. At one point, we were actually on the wrong train, thinking it would take us to Denmark, when it was really going deeper into Sweden. Luckily, we weren’t the only ones to make the mistake, and we all got off before the train left the station.

I have a fairly quite Sunday ahead of me. My host family is visiting London this weekend, so I am just going to take it easy tomorrow. My week also looks pretty easy. However, I am leaving for Lithuania on Sunday, so I defiantly have something to look forward to. To end with, here are some photos of one of the main squares in Malmö, right by the train station.