Susanna Sundström: What happened to Swedish Lucia?

I stand on the bridge above the main street and watching the christmas lights that spread a warm glow over the vintermorgonen. I marvel at how nostalgic a couple of colored lights can make me. I think back on the christmas carols I sung as a small choir, on the taste of the first pepparkakan and on the Swedish Lucia in the weeklies at the home of my grandmother.

But what really happened with the Swedish Lucia?

we are celebrating Lucia in Sweden, a tradition that was launched at Skansen in Stockholm in the late 1800s. In the 1960s, grew the lucia in popularity and from 1973 for many years forward was crowned Sweden's Lucia in Stockholm of the magazine all the Year Round.

But, since 2012, Sweden had enough. In a sort of collective Lucia-collapse seems several of Sweden's larger cities in recent years abolished Lucia-the competition completely. Even if churches and schools are still filled by the santa lucia pageant, so there is no longer a Lucia-queen to celebrate, as voted by the Swedish people.

, Lucia-the competition was probably for outdated, obsolete and traditional. It was enough for look-fixed and objectifying. But after 20 years as a singing procession of lucia, I have never wanted to see it so.

I remember kvinnoikonen and the brilliant madonna of the darkness as something beautiful I looked up to. It is a little sad though, that one of the greatest races where women got the attention, could not get change with the time instead of being taken away.

Susanna Sundström is a reporter and web editor at dagens nyheter. She is grateful for the rich musical life of Stockholm is managing the Lucia-tradition and christmassongs so well.

Read more about Lucia: "We can all be the carrier of light."