Sankta Lucia... Saint Lucia

Here is a holiday that is interesting to all of my American family and friends. This is called Saint Lucia. It is a big deal here in Sweden. Saint Lucia originally came from Italy and I am not sure how if made it here except that it is about bringing light (which at this time of the year everyone really needs). Saint Lucia day is always the 13th of December and older girls even advertise themselves to be elected to be Lucia in a specific area. She wears candles in her hair and holds one in her hands also. Her girl helpers hold candles and the boy helpers wear (what I call dunce caps) cone caps and hold stars. The big churches hold Lucia concerts were Lucia and her helpers sing traditional songs. It is quite beautiful.

Well, the little kids have to have their fun also. Below are pictures of the Lucia festival that we had at Samuel's preschool. When you are little the candles in the hair and the hands are somewhat dangerous so they are switched to battery powered lights. Also, the boys don't have to wear the dunce cap, but can be little Santas or Gingerbread men (pepperkaks gubbe in Swedish). Well, since we don't do Santa, Samuel was a gingerbread man and a very cute one at that. He loves his little outfit, he asks to wear it quite often now. All the parents sat in one room while the kids came in singing. Then they sang a few songs for us, then we had snack (of course). Andreas couldn't come because of work so his dad came instead.

Notice the dunce cap boy to the left, I wonder if I can ever bring myself to put Sam in one of those caps. I might be too American to do so, those were the caps that school teachers (way back when) use to put on kids when they were misbehaving and made them sit on a stool in the corner. Sam is of course showing off in this picture. Andreas and I think we may have a class clown later in life. He loves to make people laugh.

Snack (fika) time.

Samuel was the only gingerbread man. I am glad he felt special being that one man.

Samuel with one of the many Little Lucia girls that morning... notice out the window it is pitch black. Just to let you know.... it's 8 in the morning when this picture was taken.