Next: 13 Dec 2026
St Lucia Day
The Swedish festival of light, with lussekatter, golden saffron buns, and gingerbread and mulled wine.
Spices for St Lucia Day
On 13 December, a girl in a white gown with a crown of candles leads a procession at dawn in Sweden, and families serve lussekatter, S-shaped buns coloured and flavoured with saffron and decorated with raisins. Pepparkakor, thin gingerbread biscuits, and glogg, mulled wine with cardamom, cloves and bitter orange peel, accompany them. Saffron, an expensive import, was once a sign of a fine household, and Swedes still use it in bread and cake. Spice is the colour of light in the darkest month.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Saint Lucy's Day" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Ginger: Venkatx5, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Cardamom: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Saffron: Hubertl, CC BY-SA 4.0, source