Page 25 - Santa Lucia

Lucia fête up North
The first time the Lucia procession in writing is
mentioned happened in 1764, where Lucia was a boy,
also the first picture of Lucia in Sweden from 1864
shows that Lucia was a boy.
The Lucia procession, as we know it today, seriously
got its (commercial) breakthrough as the journalist
Guido Valentin and the paper Dagens Nyheder in
1927 arranged the first Lucia celebration. Since then
every little self-respecting town has its own Lucia
election, which cause that the young Lucia bride is
getting the honour to walk in front of the different
processions and Christmas events.
Wearing a long white dress and with candles in her
blond hair, and the local trade society has arranged
special Lucia-offers.
In Denmark the revival of the Lucia tradition began
with a Lucia celebration arranged by the weekly
magazine Weekend on December the 13'th, 1944 that
is at the end of the dark occupation years. The
occasion was set for The National Scale in
Copenhagen, and it were the readers of Weekend, who
tilted about the attractive Lucia title. The 18 years old
miss Alice Bjørneborg was at that occasion elected as
the first Danish Lucia bride.