Santa Lucia tradition

 

 Delaney happened to be the first one up this morning. No wonder that she was the first asleep last night, while Joe, Keegan and I stayed up until almost 1 getting our Christmas cards done finally :) But I have to admit I kind of jumped out of bed, because I was excited for our fun morning. The feast of Saint Lucia is celebrated in Sweden and many other Scandinavian countries as well as Italy and France on the 13th of December. The oldest daughter wakes first (if she is older then mine she may be able to do this all herself but Delaney's 7 so I helped:) She wakes her family by serving them coffee and Lucia Buns while wearing a white robe with a red sash and wearing a crown of leaves with 7 candles. They say Lingonberry leaves but since I have no idea what that is I made mine look like holly :)

Even though the 13th was a few days ago. I decided to save it for this weekend because with school and all the excitement of the wrapping up before break I wanted it to be fun and relaxed not rushed in the morning before we left. I didn't even tell Delaney we were doing this today until she woke up. It was just her and I and it was so cozy and fun just the 2 of us listening to Christmas music, preparing the cinnamon rolls while the fire flickered in the fireplace. We had to make her crown since we couldn't find last years and since even with more time I didn't have time to make Lucia Buns from scratch, we used already made cinnamon rolls. GASP! They got the idea. Delaney was so helpful!

 I cut the holly pieces out of sparkly green paper, I love it!

 Cut a piece of paper in half lengthwise. I gave it a cute scalloped edge, then taped the 2 pieces together to make the crown band.

 For the candles I just cut some red paper into rectangle "candle shapes" But I made the flames kind of cool. Cutting the main body of the flame out in one color and then taking another color and cutting out the same flame shape but cutting into it to give it a 3D effect

 My white bath robe works well for this every year :)

 I will definitely be saving the crown this year

 Maddie woke up midway through and wanted a "Happy Birthday to you hat" too :)

 Since my kids aren't big coffee drinkers we made hot cocoa

 It took some effective maneuvering to get everything upstairs. Maddie almost dumped the rolls about 5 times before we convinced her to carry the napkins.

 Up they went

 Good Morning Dad!

Napkin anyone?

 Cam had stowed away in our bed this morning, so he enjoyed breakfast in bed with Dad :) He came downstairs and said "Oh I loved Bwekfist in bed! You sure did a good job on that bwekfist Waney!"

 Now for Keegan

 

Keegan LOVES staying up late and sleeping in. It like he's a 9 year old teenager :)

 Then it was downstairs for our Lucia to enJOY her hard work :)

The History of Lucia:

It is said that Lucia was am Italian girl from Syracuse on the island of Sicily, her wealthy mother had been sick and was miraculously cured by Saint Agatha. Lucia decided she was so thankful she wanted to distribute her wealth to others. So by candlelight, she and her mother secretly ministered to the poor of the city.  She was revealed to the prefect of the time by her fiance who was not happy about her giving away her dowry and she was tortured and killed. Because of her tendency to be generous by candlelight. The Lucia tradition was born. Many people and places celebrate it as a festival of light. No one really knows when or how it exactly traveled to Sweden and Scandinavia, but it most popular and celebrated there. 

 

While the history of this day is a little dark and may be too much for little ones. The tradition is the same. I just like talking with the  kids about the more appropriate parts like her giving to the needy by candlelight and how families all over Europe also do this tradition. It is fun for them to think of themselves on a worldly scale. We looked at the globe and look where Sweden and Italy are and all in all I think it is a worthwhile piece of the holidays! Just because the 13th is passed doesn't mean you can't join in the fun too! 

enJOY!