Saint Lucia Day is celebrated across Finland, especially in Swedish-speaking communities, every year on 13 December.
The day has Catholic and Orthodox origins and is widely celebrated as a festival of light, as Lucia means 'light' and the celebration used to fall on the shortest day of the year.
Every year in Finland, a young woman is chosen to wear a wreath carrying live candles in a ceremony held at Helsinki's Lutheran Cathedral.
This year's Lucia is Daniela Owusu, a 20-year-old from Kirkkonummi who first saw the candle ceremony on television when she was in kindergarten and decided then that she wanted to be a Lucia one day.
"I'm a little nervous," Owusu told Yle from outside Helsinki Cathedral on Friday afternoon.
In an interview with Svenska Yle after she won a public vote to wear this year's crown, she said she wanted to be a role model for young people and show that anyone can become a Lucia, regardless of their background. Her father is from Ghana while her mother is Finnish.
"It would be important to have a Lucia who represents multiculturalism and to show that Lucia can look many different ways," she said.
Owusu will be crowned at 5pm in a ceremony at the cathedral, which will be broadcast on the Yle Teema channel as well as on Yle Areena.
This will be followed by the traditional Lucia procession through the centre of Helsinki, an event which regularly attracts tens of thousands of people.
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