From Marilyn Mattson of Warren MN:

First Lutheran Church of Karlstad will be the host church for the Agassiz Swedish Heritage Society’s 21^st annual Santa Lucia on Saturday, December 15, at 2:00 p.m.

Pastor Gary Halverson will give a welcome from the host congregation and ASHS President June Mosbeck of Red Lake Falls will give greetings from the society.  ASHS is honored to hold its festival in Karlstad, named after a major city in Sweden, by its early forefathers.

Queen Lucia will be Kirsten Visness of Karlstad, daughter of Stanley and Dorinda Visness.  She will wear the lighted crown and the traditional white gown with red sash.  Her attendants will also be dressed in white gowns and carry lighted candles.  Star Boys will light candles and usher in the girls.

The Christmas story from the Book of Luke will be read in Swedish and in English.    There will be many musical renditions as well as congregational singing of favorite Christmas songs.  The traditional Santa Lucia Legend will be read.  Lyndon Johnson of Hallock, SHS board member, is arranging the program and fellowship.  An offering will be received to be used for scholarships at the Concordia College Language Camp.  Supplemental Funds will be provided by the Kittson County  chapter of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. 

Following the Festival of Light, Swedish goodies provided by the members of the society and Swedish egg coffee provided by the congregation will be served.  This time of fellowship is a highlight, and everyone is cordially invited to enjoy the goodies and coffee.

From Weiser, the Holyday Book

Throughout Sweden the feast day of Lucia, or Lucy, is celebrated as a festival of lights. In the early hours of the morning of December 13 a young woman, dressed in a white gown, and wearing a red sash and a crown of lingonberry twigs and blazing candles, would go from one farm to the next carrying a torch to light her way, bringing baked goods, stopping to visit at each house and returning home by break of day. Every village had its own Lucia. The custom is thought to have begun in some of the richer farming districts of Sweden and still persists although the crowns are now electric lights.

In Norway and Sweden it is still a custom on December 13 for a girl in a white dress (representing the Saint), to bring a tray of saffron buns and steaming coffee to wake the family. She is called the Lussibrud (Lucy bride) and her pastry (saffron buns) is Lussekattor. Today many families have a Lucia-Queen in their own home, often the youngest daughter, who wakes the rest of the family with song.

Lucia symbolizes light and growth for human and beast as she emerges out of the darkness. She is said to have been beheaded by the sword during the persecutions of Diocletian at Catania in Sicily. Her body was later brought to Constantinople and finally to Venice, where she is now resting in the church of Santa Lucia. Because her name means "light" she very early became the great patron saint for the "light of the body"--the eyes. Many of the ancient light and fire customs of the Yuletide became associated with her day. Thus we find "Lucy candles" lighted in the homes and "Lucy fires" burned in the outdoors. Before the Reformation Saint Lucy's Day was one of unusual celebration and festivity because, for the people of Sweden and Norway, she was the great "light saint" who turned the tides of their long winter and brought the light of the day to renewed victory.

Before the calendar reform, her original feast day (the day of her martyrdom) happened to fall on the shortest day of the year. The winter solstice was December 13 by the Julian calendar rather than December 21, which it became with the change to the Gregorian calendar in the 1300s, linking it with the far older Yule and Winter festivals of pre-Christian times. Lucy's lore survived the Reformation and calendar reform, which brought the solstice to December 23.

Another Scandinavian custom was for children, on the eve of December 13, to write the word "Lussi" on doors, fences, and walls. In ancient times the purpose of this practice was to announce to the demons of winter that their reign was broken on Saint Lucy's Day, that the sun would return again and the days become longer. "Lucy fires" used to be burned in many parts of northern Europe on December 13. Into the bonfires people would throw incense, and while the flames rose, trumpets and flutes were playing to celebrate the changing of the sun's course.