Festival of lights
It was Diana Chirilas’ first Christmas in Australia and one of the things she missed most was Donald Duck. On Christmas Eve, Swedish TV airs old-time Disney cartoons at 3pm sharp. When she met fellow Swede, Sophie Curl, they exchanged memories.
“On Christmas morning, we’d go to the lake and have a sauna and then jump through the ice. That was the start of the day,” Sophie says, laughing that Aussies find this shocking. “At 11am we were due at my grandma’s house and then, literally, we would eat non-stop until 3pm. That’s when you’d watch Donald Duck and his Friends.”
“The adults all snooze on the couch for an hour while the kids watch TV,” their friend Linda Stanes chimes in.
“Donald Duck finishes at four,” Diana says, taking up the story, “and suddenly you look out the window and there’s Santa. You wonder, is he going to the neighbour’s? Next thing he’s knocking at the door.”
After that, there are presents and more food. Diana, Sophie and Linda missed the food more than anything.
The mulled wine, gingerbread, saffron buns, sausage, and the dozen or so different recipes for herring.
To indulge their love of Swedish food and festival traditions the friends opened Fika, a cafe in Manly, Sydney, and local Aussies have flocked to join them for semlor buns, crayfish parties, Prinsesstårta (Swedish Princess Cake), a traditional smorgasbord on Christmas Eve and the Lucia festival on 13 December.
The festival, which celebrates Saint Lucia of Syracuse, is huge in Sweden, where people vote for their local Lucia who parades through the town in a white dress, wearing a wreath of candles in her hair, followed by a choir of boys and girls dressed as stars, angels, elves and even gingerbread people, all singing Christmas carols.
The first year they instituted it at Manly, Diana admits, locals were taken by surprise, but now it draws a crowd. “We come down the laneway in white and hand out songbooks. The locals have begun to join in. We get to enjoy a little bit of Swedish Christmas in the Australian summer.”