December 13th - Lucia

Around Christmas time in Sweden, one of the biggest celebrations is St. Lucia's Day (or St. Lucy's Day) on December 13th. The celebration comes from stories that were told by Monks who first brought Christianity to Sweden.

St Lucia was a young Christian girl who was martyred, killed for her faith, in 304AD. The most common story told about St Lucia is that she would secretly bring food to the persecuted Christians in Rome, who lived in hiding in the catacombs under the city. She would wear candles on her head so she had both her hands free to carry things. Lucy means 'light' so this is a very appropriate name.

December 13th was also the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, in the old 'Julian' Calendar and a pagan festival of lights in Sweden was turned into St. Lucia's Day.

St. Lucia's Day is now celebrated by a girl dressing in a white dress with a red sash round her waist and a crown of candles on her head. Small children use electric candles but from about 12 years old, real candles are used!

The crown is made of Lingonberry branches which are evergreen and symbolise new life in winter. Schools normally have their own St. Lucia's and some town and villages also choose a girl to play St. Lucia in a procession where carols are sung.

A national Lucia is also chosen. Lucias also visit hospitals and old people's homes singing a song about St Lucia and handing out 'Pepparkakor', ginger snap biscuits.

Small children sometimes like dressing up as Lucia (with the help of their parents!). Also boys might dress up as 'Stjärngossar' (star boys) and girls might be 'tärnor' (like Lucia but without the candles). Little kids also dresses up as Santa's helpers and gingerbread man

A popular food eaten at St. Lucia's day are 'Lussekatts', St Lucia's day buns flavoured with saffron and dotted with raisins which are eaten for breakfast.

Yesterday Damien and Alicia had some Lucia performances at their schools. Damien has been so excited for this and has practiced his songs at home for weeks. Him and all the other kids did so well, they were adorable! Here are some pictures form his school. Unfortunately we never had a chance to take any pictures at Alicia's...

So today, Lucia day, was a busy day. Liam daycare had Lucia performance early this morning. We all meet up at 6:45 to watch the kids and then have had some coffee and hot chocolate and of course Lussekatter and gingerbread cookies.

Ross had to go in to work today, last day before Christmas break. After work he meet up with his teacher friends to celebrate that they are off for a couple of weeks. I spent the day with the boys and we had a full day of activities. We started of with baking lussekatter. It was a lot of fun, Damien did well making letter with his dough and all Liam did was to eat all the raisins... After lunch Liam took a nap and Alicia and mormor joined Damien and I to bake gingerbread cookies. Alicia made some cookies with some assistance from mormor and even tried some of the dough! 

In the evening I took the boys up to the mall for some dinner and to look at the Christmas lights. They had built a "winter land" with Santa's and snowman's. We had a lot of fun there and then the boys got to run around for a while in the play corner.

We ended the night curled up in the couch with some candy and watched "The little mermaid".

Great day!