Anna's Almanac: December
Waiting for the Light
In recent years, I’ve felt a growing rebellion against Decembers packed with festive adverts, fairy lights, overpriced markets, shopping panic and obligatory office parties. I try go back to the Decembers of my childhood and embrace the spirit of Advent.
Advent is a time of waiting. Of candles lit in the darkness. Of getting ready for the mysteries and miracles that surround the magical festive season. Because December is full of magic, much of it forgotten.
St Lucia’s Day: telling the weather and hiding from witches
According to old folk traditions, the longest night fell not on the Solstice, but on the eve of St Lucia’s Day celebrated on the 13 December. Therefore, the Feast of St Lucia used to be considered magical, the day when the sun and its light were born. The end of one year’s cycle and the beginning of another. The day was packed with customs and believes, most of them, in many parts of Europe, completely forgotten.
I had been unaware of the Polish folk customs and traditions associated with St Lucia’s Day until I went to study ethnology and folklore. And those traditions, counted among the oldest in the Christmas period celebrations, were quite fascinating.
From St Lucia’s Day to Christmas there are twelve days, one for each month of the year. If one watched nature closely each day, one could predict the weather for the whole coming year. People also put aside a piece of wood each day and on the Christmas Day lit the fire with thus collected twelve logs. The smoke was to protect their house from evil.
A girl who wanted to find out if she’d get married in the coming year had to break a twig from a cherry tree on St Lucia’s Day and put it in a jug of water. If blossom appeared by Christmas (some say, by the Feast of the Three Kings), she could expect a wedding soon. In some regions, everyone in the household had their own twig and the appearing blossom was seen as a sign of prosperity and good luck.
The darker aspect of Saint Lucia’s Day is associated with witches who were supposed to be very active in this time. On the night before, they would gather on sabbaths, flying on wooden bread shovels which they could turn into horses. Witches were feared because they could kidnap children and unmarried girls as well as harm the cattle. As the village people depended on fresh milk to survive, no wonder they feared the witches.
Houses and stables were decorated with protectives herbs and special spells were whispered over the heads of the precious cows. Cradles were guarded and young people kept to their homes, especially after darkness. In some areas, no females of any age were allowed into the houses on St Lucia’s Day. A witch could take any form and come disguised as a neighbour or a friend.
St Lucia, an early Christian martyr from Siracusa, is, among others, a patron saint of writers. In the past, writing by poor light affected eyesight and St Lucia has been the one to turn to with eye complaints. Perhaps it’s worth putting a cherry twigin water on 13 December. If it blooms, this publishing deal might be just around the corner…
If you’d like to follow me on my writing journey, check out for updates on my Instagram profile.
Sacred food or symbolic meaning of the Christmas Eve dishes
Getting ready for the festive season means cooking as I host a Polish Christmas Eve meal, Wigilia, in my house. Each year, preparing traditional dishes is like running a small military operation. But this evening simply cannot happen without certain foods.
Garlic
Where I come from (a very south-eastern tip of Poland), the Christmas Eve meal features raw garlic. This is not at all a typical Polish tradition, rather a Carpathian one. Garlic has been considered to have protective properties and is supposed to bring good health.
Barszcz (borscht)
Made with soured beetroot that takes over a week to ‘mature’, it’s a staple of a Polish Christmas Eve supper dating back to the early 16th century. The dish is supposed to bring longevity and health.
Fish
A folk symbol of fertility and new life, fish is also a symbol of Christ. If you put dried scales taken from your Christmas Eve carp and carry them in your wallet, you’re attract money in the coming year.
Honey and poppyseed
Associated with the otherworld, honey and poppyseed are supposed to bring good luck and prosperity. Poppyseed especially must be plentiful, otherwise something evil might befall a household.
Cabbage
Cabbage, especially sour cabbage, brings health and vitality. In the past, this was a great source of vitamins in the winter months.
Dried forest mushrooms
Mushrooms, like everything that comes from a forest, traditionally have been seen as not entirely of this world. But as such, they have magical properties and can bring good luck.
Leave a comment to share the ‘mandatory’ food from your festive table.
Book of the month: not your typical Christmas read
My book choice this month comes with a content warning. It deals with epidemics of deadly diseases in two timelines. People die in it and it’s not exactly the most cheerful read. If you can get past it, however, it gets only better.
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is one of her novels based on a simple but fantastic premise: the historians of the future have discovered time travel and use it to go back in time as part of their research. Isn’t it brilliant?
The year is 2054 (not so distant future for us, but the book was published in 1992). Kivrin, a young historian is getting ready to travel back to 1320 to observe medieval Christmas in a village near Oxford. Only, an ill technician’s mistake sends Kivrin over 20 years further in time. Things get very complicated…
I love this book not so much for its great plot or well-crafted characters, but for the medieval setting. Connie Willis paints an immersive image of the era, well researched, unsentimental, but populated by people who are curiously like us. This world is as harsh as it is beautiful. Not a cozy escape, for sure, but an unforgettable one.
Quote of the month
We know by the moon that we are not too soon
And we know by the sky that we are not too high
And we know by the stars that we are not too far
And we know by the ground that we are within sound
(From Gower Wassail, trad., listen here in my favourite version by Joglaresa)
Same dates to remember this December
4 December – full moon (Cold Moon, supermoon)
6 December – Feast of St Nicholas
13 December - Feast of St Lucia
20 December – International Human Solidarity Day
21 December – Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere
24 December – Christmas Eve
25 December – Christmas Day
31 December – New Year’s Eve
If you have a December story, reflection or reading recommendation to share, please leave a comment.
And if you liked reading Anna’s Almanac, please spread the word and help me reach more readers.
Happy December and let’s meet in the New Year!
(Photos Unsplash)
I love the variety of this, and the mindfulness.
Anna, I somehow ended up reading this on St Lucia’s Day, completely by accident, or maybe guided by one of those mischievous December spirits you write about.
Your Almanac is so beautifully written. I loved the way you wove folklore, memory, food, and light together; it felt like sitting beside someone who truly sees the quieter magic of this month.
I didn’t know about the Polish traditions around St Lucia, only the Scandinavian ones (and in Lyon, because of its old name, Lugdunum). The cherry twigs, the weather signs, the protective herb, it’s all so vivid and enchanting. And yes, now I’m thinking of poppyseed pastries… I have a terrible sweet tooth.
Your Wigilia preparations sound like an adventure of their own. For me, it’s mince pies, mulled wine, marzipan, dried fruit… and chocolate. Always chocolate.
And I loved your book choice. I always return to Dickens at this time of year. Still, lately I’ve also enjoyed Emily Windsor’s Regency take on A Christmas Carol, "A Governess Should Never Wager..A Duke," and for a Victorian December, "The Turn of the Screw always slips into my mind.
Thank you for this Almanac, Anna. It felt like a lantern held up in a noisy month, a reminder that December is still full of old mystery and quiet light.