[D]OZENS of pre-Christmas orders from all over Sweden have left the owners of the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop scratching their heads.
“We have only ever had one or two isolated orders from Stockholm before now,” said Joanne Hunter, owner of the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop.
“But in the last week or so we have had more than two dozen Christmas orders from Stockholm, Gothenburg and lots of other smaller cities including Uppsala and Karlstad.
“Perhaps it’s something to do with the St Lucy’s processions in December where gingerbread is handed out in the street.
“We did a bit of social media about this last year and had a couple of Facebook posts from Swedish people so maybe it’s linked to that but we really have no idea.”
St Lucy was killed in Sicily in 310 AD after refusing to renounce her Christian faith.
Her reputation later spread to Scandinavian countries where she was celebrated as bringing light to the world on the Winter Solstice – the 13th December according to the Julian calendar.
Joanne explained that most of the orders were for tins of Grasmere Gingerbread but two people had ordered hampers.
“I think we’ll do a little more social media about this and I have emailed some of our Swedish customers to ask how they heard about us,” she said.
