St. Lucia’s Day

Jason thinks I get a lot of wild hairs (hares? the all-knowing Internet offered only more confusion). Anyway, Jason thinks I tend toward impulsive, crazy pursuits. He may be right, I’ll give him that, but in my defense, he has no idea how many more plots I reject than the relatively few I pursue.

So on Monday, I happened to be checking over Simon’s reading homework. He had a short paragraph about St. Lucia’s Day (in which he found and highlighted evidence to answer a few comprehension questions). What luck! I read about St. Lucia’s Day on December 12, and it isn’t actually celebrated until December 13! In other words, I had a whole day to pull our very first St. Lucia’s Day celebration together.

I read a few articles about Saint Lucia of Syracuse (also known as St. Lucy). A very short version of her story is that she brought food to persecuted Christians and had to balance her candles (light) on her head because her hands were full carrying the food. The Latin of her name (Lucia) means light, and her feastday is a festival of light that is celebrated particularly in Scandinavian countries, with their long, dark winters.

Although I briefly considered the idea of a St. Lucy’s Day party and inviting some friends over, I toned down my plans and just did a couple of simple things with the family. To make Clara’s crown, I found a wreath at a thrift store (deciding not to drive real quick to IKEA to see if they had anything actually made to be a St. Lucia crown–see, Jason, how reasonable I am? I *rejected* that idea!).  Slight problem in affixing the candles: hot glue will not actually glue wax to anything. After several attempts at a creative solution, we finally came up with a duct tape remedy (of course!). The crown altogether was less than ideal, but it got the idea across, and I have a whole year to find and/or make a new one.

For breakfast, I made saffron buns. And for our after-dinner celebration, we had traditional(ish) Swedish glogg (okay, it was actually Trader Joe’s wassail) and a (not-at-all) traditional chocolate orange and a couple of the leftover saffron buns. Clara had to hold the crown, so the boys helped her by carrying in the food. We didn’t know any St. Lucia songs, so we sang Christmas carols.

Maybe next year I’ll be more on top of things, and maybe not. Our St. Lucia’s Day was pretty special just the way it was.