Sweden

The Swedish Christmas season starts on December 13.  This day is known as Luciadagen, or Saint Lucia's Day. This day is celebrated by rich and poor in every part of the country.

Saint Lucia is always represented by a young girl who wears a white dress and crimson sash and stockings. She has a lingon, or whortleberry leaf crown, into which white lighted candles are inserted.

She announces Yuletide at dawn by stopping at the bedside of each member of the family with a tray of coffee and cakes. The custom goes back to the legend of Saint Lucia, who was condemned to death in 304 during the reign of the Roman Emperor, Diocletian.

In Swedish homes, the oldest daughter enacts the role of Saint Lucia. In some villages one young girl is elected to visit each house-hold with a tray of coffee and cakes. In Stockholm and other large cities there are many Lucia Brides.

In smaller places Saint Lucia usually makes her rounds alone. Sometimes groups of young parishioners accompany her. The boys, who are called Star Boys, wear white costumes and tall peaked caps decorated with cut-outs of moon and stars. They always carry a paper star lantern fasted to the end of a long pole. The star - which is lighted from inside - revolves like a pinwheel. The girls wear long white dresses. They carry lighted white tapers.

Sometimes baker boys are in the group. They offer ginger cookies and "Lucy cats," or buns flavored with crushed cardamon and baked in the shape of a letter X. Originally the form probably stood for the Greek letter chi, which looks like an X and begins the name of Christ.