St. Lucia Day

Hee - that's the Deac with Emmelia dressed as St. Lucia on this day back in 2001. And - wow - how my ability to get decent web images has changed in the past 4 years!

Happy St. Lucia Day! We used to go all out and make the special Swedish buns with saffron to mark this day, but we didn't manage it this year.

St. Lucia (aka St. Lucy) was a Sicilian martyr who later appeared in the middle of a snowstorm in Sweden and brought food to the people there. Since that miracle occurred, she has been venerated in the Scandinavian countries and her feast day marks the beginning of the Christmas season there. Young girls dress up as the saint in white robes with red sashes (to represent her martyrdom) and crowns of candles (to represent her halo or heavenly glow). They wake their families with St. Lucia buns and coffee. It sounds like a wonderful holiday to me. I've always just liked the story and Lucy was a name on our list of possibilities for both girls. I'm sure Emmelia would've loved to dress up as St. Lucia this year - she's really into dress up. But the middle of the week is a little hard to manage when it comes to things like making buns from scratch and dressing up. Maybe someday we'll visit Sweden for this holiday.