By John Hill Journal Staff Writer
EAST GREENWICH — With Dec. 25 little more than two weeks away, it’s time to bake some pepparkaka and light up the children’s eyes with stories of the julbok and the tomtes.
That is, if you’re Swedish and you were at St. Luke’s Church Saturday for the Rhode Island Swedish Heritage Association’s annual St. Lucia Fest and Christmas party.
St. Lucia’s Day honors an early Christian martyr and her day, Dec. 13, is the traditional start of the Christmas season in Sweden.
Merlene Mayette, the association’s secretary, said the festival usually attracts around 200 people from southern New England. Many of the women dress in the traditional long woven skirts and brightly colored vests of Sweden. Young children wear the pointy red hats, bright red shirts and leggings of the tomte (elves) while some of the girls dress in white robes with diadems of silver or crowns holding battery-powered candles to honor St. Lucia.
The banquet hall was decked out in Swedish flags, with their yellow crosses on a blue field, and pictures of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia. There was lingonberry juice, pepparaka spice cookies and julbok figurines.
The Swedes don’t have Santa Claus, Mayette said. Their legend is that the julbok, the Yule Goat, drags a large sledge full of toys and the tomte bring them into the homes.
Though Rhode Island’s most well-known immigrant group is probably the Italians, the state has a claim to Swedes as well. Many came to the state in the late 1800s, after a famine hit Scandinavia. Like previous immigrants, they found work in the state’s textile and jewelry industries. Most settled in and around Providence area; Eden Park in Cranston was once known as Swedetown.
Mayette said many young Swedish women would come to the United States and other countries to work as au pairs, and then ended up staying.
“They were very much in demand,” she said. “They worked hard and they were always on time.”
That was how Anna Shanstrom, who lives in Wakefield, came to the United States 30 years ago. She said in Scandinavia many people take a year off before going to college.
“It’s a way to see a different country,” she said.
She said she still returns every few years to visit, and the St. Lucia Fest is a way to remember as well.
“It’s nice to see something Swedish,” she said.
Mayette said there was one Swedish tradition the festival passed on: lutfisk.
Lutfisk is fermented cod soaked in lye, sometime for weeks, until it becomes gelatinous.
“They won’t let them open it on airplanes,” Mayette said, “because it will stink up the whole place.”