Candy raccoon?

Each year on the 13th of December Sweden celebrates Saint Lucia day. It’s usually celebrated by a procession and singing of Swedish Christmas carols the morning and heavy drinking at night. I used to be a diligent participant of both, but have in recent years only attended the more child friendly singing event.

For the second year in a row we’ve had a Lucia procession at our local IKEA with the Swedish school that our kids attend, so they can learn and enjoy some of the Swedish traditions that I grew up with. All people that are at least mildly familiar with this tradition know that the procession consists of: One Lucia wearing a crown of lights on her head and then a bunch of tärnor (girls dressed in white, just like the lucia but without the crown of lights), gigngerbread men, stjärngossar (directly translated as star boys, dressed in white with white cone hats), and elfs. And that’s it. There are most definitely no Candy Raccoons.

Until now.

Some brilliant parent had, what could only be considered a serious lapse of judgment, and let his kid dress up as what I first thought was Batman. I wasn’t sure if he was going to change out of this outfit or not, but to everyone’s dismay, it stayed on. This to a Swede, is about as blasphemous as writing Superman into the Bible and having him deliver baby Jesus, or claiming that the Three Wise Men aren’t good enough and wanting to replace them with the Fantastic Four instead. Awesome? Maybe. But it might also get you serverly beaten with sticks.