2011 St. Lucia Day in Göteborg is an hour away on SVT; will they strike gold and be sublime yet again?

Above, five screen-shots I snapped of Amanda Römmesmo Diaz (as Lucia) during the 2010 St. Lucia Day ceremony and concert telecast from Kungsholms Church in Stockholm last year, which was broadcast by SVT.

It was, in a word, awesome! 

Can we dare to hope this year's will be as good?

My popular blog post on that was titled, quite naturally, 2010 St. Lucia Day in Stockholm: traditional songs and sweet sentimentality that ring true across the miles; SVT's Lucia program is sublime!, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-st-lucia-day-in-stockholm.html

The ceremony starts Tuesday, December 13 at 7:00 a.m. Stockholm time, which is GMT+1, meaning it's on LIVE at 1 a.m. Miami/Eastern Standard Time.

If you're seeing this blog post of mine sometime on Tuesday morning, it's not too late to check it out again on the re-broadcast at 6 p.m. in Sweden on SVT2.

Everywhere else in the world, including here in Miami, the Land of the Luckless Dolphins. you can see Luciamorgon at SVT Play, specifically at

http://svtplay.se/v/2640264/luciafirande_i_svt/lucia

It will be available for viewing on the SVT Play website until January 12, 2012.

Hallandale Beach Blog/South Beach Hoosier favorite Jill Johnson, along with Sofia Karlsson will be at Gothenburg Cathedral, along with their Boys and Girls Choir, to sing some traditional holiday songs and carols, and actor Tomas von Brömsen will be keeping it real by reading some stories that capture the holiday moment and explain the story of Lucia.

Excellent!

More on the broadcast and SVT's other holiday programming at their special webpage: http://svt.se/2.114280/1.1789593/ and http://svt.se/2.114277/julen_i_svt_2011

If you want to replicate something sweet and soulful -and sublime- having Jill Johnson sing is a great start!

Jill Johnson -"O Holy Night" at Jullotta På Liseberg,Göteborg, Sweden. December 8, 2011. http://youtu.be/qOfbkzG0dK0

Lionheart Sweden video: Jill Johnson - Välkommen jul (Sampler)

http://youtu.be/MaYMN4Mlcfs

Clips from Jill's new "Welcome Christmas" holiday album with the Gavle Symphony Orchestra. http://tjuvlyssna.nu/

Among other places in Sverige last week, Gothenburg was absolutely flooded with rain last Thursday, and, according to soggy friends of the blog on-the-scene, it was only Monday that water started receding to reveal just how many cars got completely swamped. And more snow and rain, snöfall och regn, is coming toute-de-suite from the west, with very strong winds in tow.

http://svtplay.se/v/1636831/senaste_prognos

Tack, Helen!

http://www.smhi.se/

http://www.smhi.se/en/Weather

Today's Aftonbladet had these photos of the soggy scene:

http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article14062787.ab

http://www.aftonbladet.se/vader/article14069059.ab

Just the thought of that mess makes me want to have some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup!

Speaking of tomato...

Two years ago yesterday, it was a classic case of Gershwin's "You like potato, I like potahto..."

The Local

Göteborg changes name back to Gothenburg

Published: 11 Dec 09 06:55 CET

http://www.thelocal.se/23786/20091211

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Wow!

In a sign of the times, due to so many creepy people in the world using Social Media for nefarious means, in Gavle, schools are forbidding families from videotaping or photographing their own daughters -and others- doing their Lucia ceremonies, so that the resulting photos and video are NOT swiped off the Internet and abused by being posted at porn sites or maintained for personal use.

Parents actually have to sign forms acknowledging they know the new rules before attending.

Sad beyond words...

TV4 News, Gavle, December 12, 2011.

http://www.tv4play.se/nyheter_och_debatt/nyheterna_gavle?title=restriktioner_mot_att_fotografera_luciatagen&videoid=2117437&utm_medium=sharing&utm_source=permalink&utm_campaign=tv4play.se

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The performance that first brought Jill to my attention, four years ago...

Jill Johnson - Jolene on TV4's Bingolotto, 2007.

http://youtu.be/K-Dl83hLZG4

Jill Johnson's official YouTube Channel is at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/jilljohnsonmusic

http://www.tv4play.se/

http://www.thelocal.se/

http://www.communityofsweden.com/

2010 St. Lucia Day in Stockholm: traditional songs and sweet sentimentality that ring true across the miles; SVT's Lucia program is sublime!; updated

The first five photos above are screenshots I took of Amanda Römmesmo Diaz (as Lucia) from Tuesday morning's St. Lucia concert at Kungsholms Church in Stockholm, that was broadcast LIVE by SVT -at 7 a.m.- in an event officially titled, Luciamorgon i Kungsholms kyrka.

The ridiculously cute St. Lucia icon/photo directly below those photos of Amanda is from Elina Thorsell's blog post Tuesday, as the flute-playing member of Timoteij recounts what she was up to today on one of the biggest days on the Scandinavian calendar.

This was updated in December 2015

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Lucia

Av Elina den 13/12/2010

Idag är det den 13 december och julen närmar sig med stormsteg! När jag gick upp imorse så var tv.n på och luciafirandet strömmade ut ur högtalarna. Så fint!...
Read the rest of Elina's post at: http://www.timoteij.se/2010/12/13/lucia/

In Elina's particular case, the celebration of the Queen of Light amidst supernatural forces, included her going to her little brother's school to listen to him and his classmates sings some festive traditional holiday songs. What a sweetie she is!

As the ever-adorable Elina alludes to in her post, Swedish TV was in full St. Lucia mode today from the get-go, and one of those features was SVT's fabulous one-hour broadcast this morning featuring the Södra Latin Chamber Choir -conducted by Jan Risberg- singing traditional Lucia and Christmas favorites like, well, yes, angels, even as the St. Lucia action holds our attention, as our brunette Lucia, Amanda, stays perfectly still throughout the ceremony, with four burning candles on her head wreath.

Good job, Amanda!

Also appearing this morning to sing some traditional Christmas favorites and give it some oomph were some very popular singers like Darin, Sonja Aldén, Shirley Clamp and Sanna Nielsen.

As I watched it earlier today, the only word that fit was serene -except when that word was heavenly.
Watch the whole program on SVT Play at
http://svtplay.se/v/2265228/luciafirande_i_svt/lucia



As always when I recommend an SVT program for your enjoyment here on the blog, once you have pulled-up the SVT web page, click the word "Fullskärm" to the bottom right in order to make it "full screen." Though some of the program is in Swedish, obviously, you'll still be able to appreciate the songs without knowing a single word of svensk.

I really urge you to watch some of it -if not the whole thing- as a means of not only reducing your own holiday stress, but gaining some Scandinavian cultural awareness, PLUS, and I can't emphasize this enough, the audio and video production qualities of this are just flat-out amazing! Especially considering that SVT had this entire program up on their website within hours of it airing!

(I have a future blog post on the amazing technical quality of SVT and SVT Play's programs and website that features plenty of examples of why they win so many design and technical awards.)

There's no heavy-handed VO narration by some un-seen quasi-celeb, nobody in the audience aping for the cameras, nobody in the church trying to steal the limelight from the kids performing. In a sense, it's almost like watching a documentary on another culture, with cameras that are carefully hidden to prevent anyone from acting un-naturally.
The video is available for watching on the SVT Play web page until January 11, 2011, so you only have a month to catch it before it goes buh-bye!


2015 Update: Excerpts from SVT's 2010 Luciamorgon, i Kungsholms kyrka, via 398asa YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLycexat2xk
Luciamorgon i Kungsholms kyrka

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SVT's holiday webpage, http://svt.se/2.114277/julen_i_svt_2010 is chock-a-block full of interesting things and as usual, is not only clever and colorful -while a bit cheeky- but also well-produced, but NOT busy and cluttered, unlike the Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel's web pages these days, which cause me to get a headache at the complete waste of resources in an area like South Florida that is crying out for real news coverage, not more syndicated photo files of B-List celebs or amusing animals.

Will someone please put a stop to that madness before the shareholders finally find out what's been going the past few years?

Tell them that the second-rate websites and the duplication of stories isn't fooling anyone about the actual quality of the product anymore?

We see thru the self-serving lies, the ridiculous fallacies, clear-cut news mis-representation and the longstanding charade that most of the reporters, columnists and editors really want to bring compelling stories to the public's attention -they don't.

That dog doesn't hunt anymore, plus, it's so, so painful to wade thru all the junk online plus seeing links to so-called Breaking News that's already 18 hours old.

Me duele la cabeza!

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I know that I am remiss in this, and I've already received some emails from overseas the past few days asking me why I haven't said anything yet about the suicide bombings in Stockholm.

Well, I'm working on something right now in regards to that specifically, as well as the larger change in Swedish political and social culture.
I think it'll give you some real insight into some matters that you won't find elsewhere in South Florida, though that clearly isn't really much to brag about these days, is it?

All-in-all, I think at least some of you of a more serious bent will be surprised at what you learn -as well as disturbed- and find out how much has been going on in a modern democratic European country like Sweden that you haven't been hearing about in the American mainstream media, print and electronic.

For instance, the efforts by certain non-native groups that aren't particularly keen to assimilate and adapt to Swedish norms of democracy and civics, to actually prevent people from being able to speak freely at public forums, and inciting violence so that they can then be cast by the news media as victims.
There has been an awful lot of that!

Whether you haven't seen it in print or on TV already in the U.S. because of journalistic laziness, editorial myopia or that old alibi, lack or resources, I can't say.

But after you read a bit and see some videos I have in mind for you all, you won't be able to say that you didn't know.
And the facts are pretty compelling, especially when you have the video that tells the tale.

If you think the mainstream news media in the U.S. is condescending and ideologically against the interests of the average American, you have no idea how much worse it is in Sweden, as the election coverage showed.

As Christmas nears in the U.S., nobody-but-nobody wants 'legacy media' in their Christmas stocking, not even their own employees.
It's the same thing in Sverige.

Everybody wants the 'new media!'