St. Lucia
I'm not sure if you know this, but I actually have Scandinavian heritage. My mom's side of the family is Swedish by ancestry,and when I was little, my mom liked to keep some Swedish traditions alive. She had a little candle holder with angels that spun around, being propelled by the convection current from the heat of the candles. She also made St. Lucia buns, a traditional Swedish baked good. I grew up knowing that on December 13, the oldest daughter in the family was supposed to get up before dawn, bake St. Lucia buns, dress in a white robe and a red sash, carry a crown of holly on her head, and serve the buns to her family. I always begrudged my sister's position as the oldest daughter and utterly failed to understand why she wasn't interested in the tradition. I mean, what teenager would not want to wake up before dawn and bake for her family? I wanted to! At one point, I even bought a fake wreath at a Christmas market and practiced walking around the house with it on my head.
When I came home from work on Thursday, I walked into a terrific-smelling kitchen and found some of my housemates baking St. Lucia buns! The dough is pretty basic, but you're supposed to form it into curled-up coils and then stick raisins on top. The buns are very good! I immediately started rambling to my housemates about how my mom used to make them when I was a kid and how I always wanted to be the oldest daughter because then I could do the crown thing and how awesome it was to discover that a tradition that I had always learned about was actually true! They actually celebrate St. Lucia Day in Scandinavia!
I was ecstatic, and I think I might have actually scared my housemates a little bit. They insisted to me that St. Lucia Day was a Swedish tradition, not a Norwegian one. I personally think the fact that Norwegians celebrate St. Lucia just reflects the Norwegian habit of stealing all the best holidays from other countries - I'm serious; they have Halloween, Oktoberfest, everything! They're unscrupulous over here.
One of my housemates, a grade school teacher, said her class had a St. Lucia celebration, and all the kids got to wear white robes and crowns of tinsel and walk around the school. There was a similar children's procession at my church. I couldn't stop myself from smiling as a row of young girls and boys walked past my pew, living out the tradition that I so desperately wanted to when I was that age. You know, my housemates ask me all the time if various aspects of American culture are really like they see in the movies - if high schoolers can drive, if we put Christmas lights on our houses. They're always surprised when I say yes. I feel like I've just made the exact same discovery, only in reverse. Yes, all the things I always heard about St. Lucia Day are actually true. The tradition is real. My life is complete.
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| St. Lucia buns! |
I was ecstatic, and I think I might have actually scared my housemates a little bit. They insisted to me that St. Lucia Day was a Swedish tradition, not a Norwegian one. I personally think the fact that Norwegians celebrate St. Lucia just reflects the Norwegian habit of stealing all the best holidays from other countries - I'm serious; they have Halloween, Oktoberfest, everything! They're unscrupulous over here.
One of my housemates, a grade school teacher, said her class had a St. Lucia celebration, and all the kids got to wear white robes and crowns of tinsel and walk around the school. There was a similar children's procession at my church. I couldn't stop myself from smiling as a row of young girls and boys walked past my pew, living out the tradition that I so desperately wanted to when I was that age. You know, my housemates ask me all the time if various aspects of American culture are really like they see in the movies - if high schoolers can drive, if we put Christmas lights on our houses. They're always surprised when I say yes. I feel like I've just made the exact same discovery, only in reverse. Yes, all the things I always heard about St. Lucia Day are actually true. The tradition is real. My life is complete.
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