Seasonal Spirit Shines Brightly at Swedish School

At this time of year in Sweden, when the sun makes its presence known for a few hours a day, if at all, there is an icon who rivals Jultomte, the Swedish Santa Claus.

She is Santa Lucia, symbolizing the light of faith and the promise of the sun’s return. Each Dec. 13, the festivities of Lucia Day begin early, with costumed children throughout Sweden bringing their parents breakfast in bed -- a pot of tea or coffee, a pitcher of milk, gingersnaps and lussekatter, or “Lucia cats,” saffron yeast buns studded with raisins.

Lucia Day arrived a day late for the 70 children who attend the Svenska Skolan Los Angeles. On Tuesday, they dressed in white gowns, crowns of candles and gingerbread costumes and paraded into the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church in Santa Monica. There they warbled holiday songs -- in Swedish, of course -- including a Santa Lucia tune with the same melody as the well-known Italian song.

Founded in 1976, Svenska Skolan, or the Swedish School, was the brainchild of Margareta Saperston, nee Kjellander, who as a young woman immigrated to the United States from her native Sweden, living in Michigan and Florida before finding her way to Los Angeles. Here she met and married Howard Saperston, with whom she had two daughters, now grown.

When her children were little, Saperston went looking for a formal educational program that would help bolster their budding knowledge of Swedish, which she spoke with them at home. Finding nothing, Saperston decided to create her own.

From its tiny start, the school has grown, with families coming each Tuesday afternoon to Santa Monica from as far away as Burbank and Oxnard. Over the years, the program has outgrown bank conference rooms and smaller churches on the Westside. Two years ago, it moved to the Methodist church in Santa Monica.

Many parents spend hours volunteering for the school, which has 10 paid teachers and teaching assistants.

For many families, this is the best way to keep the Swedish culture alive for their children.

“I’ve been able to keep the children bilingual,” said Leana Greene, a Swedish-born singer whose daughters Blue, 2, and Violet, 5, attend.

Svenska Skolan (pronounced SVEN-ska SKO-lan, with the characteristic sing-song rhythm) supports itself, barely, by charging $100 per student per term and by holding a fundraiser each May. The Swedish school system provides a small subsidy for students over 6.

“It’s my love child, so to speak,” said Saperston, a real estate broker who often fills in for absent teachers.

As a sign of the school’s importance to the community, Saperston was honored in November with the Eliason Merit Award. The award is presented annually by the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Los Angeles to individuals who have contributed to strengthening relations between the United States and Sweden in commerce, culture, science or the arts. Past recipients have included Bjorn Ahlstrom, formerly Volvo’s top North American executive, and entertainer Ann-Margret.

With her blond hair, 5-foot-11 frame and melodic accent, Saperston looks and sounds like the very embodiment of Swedish-ness.

As sessions got underway one recent Tuesday, about 60 adults and children first gathered together in a classroom to sing Christmas carols before dividing into groups. Many of the tots were towheads, as one might expect, but there were also a few dark-haired children -- many of them children of a Swedish parent and a parent from Asia, Eastern Europe or South America.

Like a mother hen, Saperston moved from classroom to classroom, visiting with groups from the youngest, Snails (infants to 2 years old), to Rabbits, Horses, Lions, Tigers and Moose (young teens). Saperston teaches a new class, the New Vikings, for pupils 5 and older who do not yet speak Swedish.

As the Lions painted glass ornaments, the Horses created candy-filled Christmas crackers out of red and green tissue paper. In another classroom, older pupils were learning the words for arms, legs, face and hair.

“It’s very good for the children,” Marianne Jungbeck, a grandmother visiting from Stockholm, said of the school.

Although no one knows for sure how many Swedes live in Southern California, “there are clearly more than 10,000,” said Erik Nord, president of the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles.

Because many people from Sweden speak English fluently, they tend to blend in. “There is a community, but if you’re not part of it, you never notice,” Nord said.

Lucia Day, on the other hand, is a day when Swedes want to be noticed.

At the center of this yule tradition is a girl who portrays Santa Lucia, wearing a white gown with a red-ribbon sash and a crown of candles. She is often attended by “starboys” in long white gowns with star-topped wands and cone-shaped paper hats decorated with gold stars.

There were many Lucias at Svenska Skolan’s celebration. And when the singing was done, they feasted on Christmas foods that provided a taste of home perhaps better suited to their parents -- Jansson’s Temptation (potato gratin with anchovies), gravlax, glogg, boiled potatoes and lots of pickled herring.