Lucia and Christmas
in SwedenWhere to see it, what to book, and what closes

The dates, and which are holidays

Advent begins on Sunday 29 November 2026, and the Advent Sundays follow on 6, 13 and 20 December. Nobel Day is Thursday 10 December. Lucia is Sunday 13 December. Christmas Eve, julafton, is Thursday 24 December, Christmas Day Friday 25 and Boxing Day, annandag jul, Saturday 26. New Year's Eve is Thursday 31 December, then New Year's Day on Friday 1 January 2027, Epiphany on Wednesday 6 January, and tjugondag Knut, which traditionally ends Christmas, on Wednesday 13 January.

Swedish law names Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day and Epiphany as public holidays. Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are not, but most people have them off under their working agreements, and they are the days that are celebrated. Lucia is not a holiday in law either. In 2026 it happens to be one anyway, because every Sunday is.

Christmas 2026 falls conveniently: Christmas Eve is a Thursday, so the country runs straight from Thursday to Sunday without a working day in between.

What Lucia is

Lucia herself was a saint of Syracuse, in Sicily, and nothing about her is Swedish. What Sweden built around her date is several traditions folded together. Before the calendar reform of 1753, Lucia night was counted as the longest night of the year and a dangerous one. A white-clad Lucia with candles is recorded at Horn, a manor in Västergötland, in 1764; students kept their own Lucia customs in the 1800s; and the first public Lucia procession in Stockholm was staged in 1927, by the newspaper Stockholms Dagblad.

Medieval Sweden kept 13 December as Saint Lucy's feast day, and few pictures of her survive from that time. One is an embroidery from Torskinge church in Småland, from around 1500, which tells the story of her martyrdom; in the detail here she receives communion from a churchman. Her death has nothing to do with the Swedish tradition, which grew from the date, not the story. The photograph is by Maria Neijman for the Swedish History Museum, CC BY 4.0.

Today a Lucia procession is a Lucia in a white gown, a red sash and a crown of candles, attendants in white each holding a candle, and often star boys in tall pointed hats, all singing as they walk. The candles in the crown are now usually electric. The melody everyone knows, 'Sankta Lucia', is a Neapolitan song of 1850 by Teodoro Cottrau; the other standard, 'Natten går tunga fjät', has Swedish words written in 1928.

Afterwards there is coffee or glögg, saffron buns called lussekatter and gingerbread biscuits, pepparkakor. Schools, workplaces and churches across the country hold their own Lucias, many in the dark early morning, so the 13th is less one event than thousands of small ones.

Where to see Lucia in 2026

In Stockholm the surest choice is Storkyrkan, the cathedral in Gamla stan, which holds Lucia concerts on 6 December at 15:00 and 17:00, every evening from 8 to 11 December at 18:00 and 20:00, four times on 12 December and four times on 13 December, the last at 21:30. Tickets are SEK 110 to 305, the concerts last about an hour, and latecomers are not let in. Stockholms musikgymnasium sings Lucia in the Blue Hall of the City Hall on 12 December at 19:30 and 13 December at 16:00 and 19:00, and holds a free Lucia morning at Maria Magdalena kyrka on Södermalm at 07:30 on Friday 11 December.

At Skansen, Lucia is sung in Seglora church on 12 and 13 December, four times a day between 11:00 and 16:30, and it needs a concert ticket of its own on top of park admission. Skansen has kept a Lucia since the 1890s. Two other Stockholm Lucias were already sold out in October: the Dalarna Lucia at Nordiska museet, and the Lucia breakfast at Nalen on 11 December.

Outside Stockholm, Uppsala Cathedral holds Lucia concerts on 11, 13 and 14 December, with a shorter family performance at 15:00 on the 13th. Gothenburg Cathedral sings 'Lucia, välkommen' on 10, 12 and 13 December. In Malmö, three churches hold Lucia on 12 and 13 December at SEK 50 to 150, with tickets on sale from 2 November at Kulturcentralen. In Lund, Kulturen's Christmas fair closes each day with a Lucia procession.

The Christmas markets

Stockholm's oldest is at Skansen, held since 1903 among the open-air museum's old buildings: Fridays to Sundays from 27 November to 20 December 2026, 10:00 to 17:00 and to 16:00 on Sundays, included in park admission. The Royal Stables, Hovstallet, behind the palace, hold a market of about seventy makers from 4 to 6 December, at SEK 120. The market on Stortorget in Gamla stan is listed by Visit Sweden for 22 November to 23 December, though its organiser had not published hours when we checked.

In Gothenburg, Liseberg's Christmas season runs on selected days from 14 November to 30 December. Haga has a street market on weekends from 28 November to 20 December, 11:00 to 16:00; Kronhusjul fills the old Kronhuset on changing days from 25 November, free to enter; and the estates of Gunnebo and Tjolöholm hold weekend markets in late November and early December.

Skåne does Christmas in its castles and old farms. Övedskloster, in Sjöbo, where we are based, holds about 140 exhibitors from 11 to 13 December, at SEK 120. Kulturen's Julstök in Lund runs from 27 to 29 November, at SEK 160; Bosjökloster's from 27 to 29 November, at SEK 110; Fredriksdal in Helsingborg from 4 to 6 December, at SEK 175; and Norrviken in Båstad on the first two December weekends. Further afield, Visby's Medeltida Jul fills the ruin of S:t Nicolai from 4 to 6 December, free, and Uppsala and Gamla Linköping hold historic markets, also free, on the first weekends of December.

Julbord, the Christmas buffet

A julbord is a Christmas buffet. Restaurants serve it in the weeks before Christmas, and it is laid again on Christmas Eve, at home and at places like Camp Ripan in Kiruna. Expect several kinds of pickled herring, the Christmas ham, boiled and then glazed with egg, breadcrumbs and mustard, small sausages, liver pâté, Janssons frestelse, an anchovy and potato gratin, and sometimes lutfisk, dried fish soaked in lye before it is cooked. There is glögg, and a small glass of snaps with a song before it.

Restaurants set their own seasons, from the middle of November to just before Christmas, and the popular ones sell out. In Stockholm, Stadshuskällaren, under the City Hall, serves julbord from 17 November to 22 December 2026, at SEK 695 to 1,195 for lunch and 995 to 1,395 for dinner depending on the date. The Grand Hôtel's in the Winter Garden is SEK 1,395, plus a SEK 35 service charge. In Gothenburg, Långedrag Värdshus serves by the sea from 20 November to 23 December, from SEK 995, and Fiskekrogen from 20 November, at SEK 995 to 1,345. Book as early as you can.

Between the buffets, Sweden drinks julmust, a dark, sweet Christmas soft drink: about 50 million litres a year, by the brewers' own figures. Our snaps blending afternoon is a good way to arrive at the table with a bottle of your own.

Christmas Eve

Sweden celebrates on the 24th, a habit kept from the old vigils on the eve of great feast days. The day has a shape. At 15:00, traditionally, a large part of the country sits down to watch Kalle Anka, Disney's Christmas cartoons, which SVT has shown on Christmas Eve since 1960; 2,984,000 people watched in 2025. SVT had not published the 2026 time when we wrote this. Then comes the meal, and the jultomte, the Christmas tomte, brings the presents that evening, not on Christmas morning.

Rice porridge, risgrynsgröt, belongs to Christmas, often with a single almond hidden in the pot. Early on Christmas morning, churches hold julotta, the dawn service. In the windows you will see paper Advent stars and electric candlesticks, a custom that arrived from Germany and spread through Sweden in the 1930s, and straw goats, left over from the days when a goat, not a tomte, brought the gifts.

Up in Gävle, the town's giant straw goat is inaugurated on Stortorget at 16:00 on Sunday 29 November 2026, its 60th anniversary. Whether it survives the season is followed every year: the 2024 goat did, the 2023 one was eaten by jackdaws, and the 2025 one was blown down in a storm on 27 December.

What is open over Christmas

Not everything closes. On Christmas Eve, Skansen is open from 10:00 to 14:00, and from 10:00 to 16:00 on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Nordiska museet is open from 10:00 to 17:00 every day through the holidays, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The Vasa Museum closes on 24 and 25 December and reopens on Boxing Day. Moderna Museet closes on 24, 25 and 31 December and on New Year's Day. The Royal Palace runs a Christmas hunt for children every day from 26 December to 6 January, 10:00 to 16:00.

Systembolaget, the state alcohol shop, is the one to plan around. It is open until at least 19:00 on 22 and 23 December, then closed on 24, 25 and 26 December; open until 15:00 on New Year's Eve; and closed on New Year's Day and on 6 January. Buy what you need by the 23rd. Many shops and restaurants keep shorter hours on 24 to 26 December, so check each one, and check SL's journey planner for buses and trains on the days you travel.

New Year's Eve

Stockholm's New Year's Eve has one fixed point. Skansen opens from 20:00 to midnight on 31 December, and at midnight Tennyson's 'Ring Out, Wild Bells' is read in Swedish, as Nyårsklockan, live on SVT. Ordinary admission applies, children up to 15 need a free digital ticket of their own, and fireworks are not allowed in. For a dinner instead, Fotografiska's New Year's Eve is SEK 2,695 with drinks.

Fireworks are not a free-for-all. You must be 18 to buy or let them off, rockets on sticks need special permission, and in Stockholm a police permit is needed wherever fireworks risk harm or real disturbance, which in a dense city is most places.

Weather, light and snow

December in the south is grey, damp and only just above freezing. SMHI's 1991–2020 averages are 0.6 degrees in Stockholm, 2.1 in Gothenburg and 2.6 in Malmö. On Lucia the sun rises in Stockholm at 08:36 and sets at 14:47; on Christmas Eve, at 08:44 and 14:49. Malmö gets about an hour more.

A white Christmas is possible in the south, and nothing more. SMHI counts one as at least a centimetre of snow on Christmas morning, and across Svealand, the region around Stockholm, that happened in 59 per cent of the years from 1991 to 2020, down from 75 per cent in 1961–1990. If snow matters, go north. In Kiruna the sun does not rise at all on either day; our polar night guide has the dates.

Christmas in the north, and getting there

Lapland at Christmas is snow, polar night and long dark skies. Camp Ripan in Kiruna sells a four-night Christmas from 23 to 27 December 2026, at SEK 9,460 a person, with a julbord on Christmas Eve, and a New Year from 29 December to 2 January at SEK 9,530. ICEHOTEL at Jukkasjärvi, which opens on 11 December, serves a four-course Christmas dinner on the 24th, rather than a buffet. Our Icehotel guide has the rest.

Christmas is one of the year's busiest times to travel. SJ's tickets for 13 December 2026 to 10 January 2027 are already on sale, and SJ's own advice is to book early and be flexible about the day.