Celebrating St. Lucia

I can only imagine our spawn's thoughts this morning.

"Why is mommy's head on fire? What is that smell? You guys see this, right? Her head is on fire. Oh, they got out the tea set. But that doesn't smell like tea. What are those yellow buns? Wait, why are they singing before eating breakfast? WHAT IS GOING ON?!"

Well what's going on is the Feast of St. Lucy, or St. Lucia, or Santa Lucia depending on how multicultural you want to be. A lot of Orthodox don't celebrate this feast day, but it's a good Norse holiday (big in Sweden), which is Germanish, and I've celebrated it for years, and she is an Orthodox saint, so rock on.

St. Lucy was a young Roman girl in the third century. She vowed to remain a virgin, and after getting her mother on board (which involved a vision from St. Agatha) she gave her dowry to the poor. Her fiancé, a pagan, didn't like that so he denounced her as a Christian. She was sentenced to be defiled in a brothel, but the Holy Spirit made her so heavy they couldn't move her, even with ox. Instead they decided to burn her on the spot, but the flames wouldn't burn her, but she glowed with Light. They gouged out her eyes and stuck her throat through with a sword. She said a last prayer and fell asleep in the Lord.

Years later a famine in Sweden ended when a boat arrived, guided by a girl glowing with an unearthly light, carrying sacks of wheat. It was St. Lucy, and ever since the Swedes honor her by making buns called "Lucy Cats" (no idea why) and having coffee, and the oldest girl in the house is supposed to serve breakfast while wearing a crown of candles and lingonberry leaves.

The oldest girl in our home is OrthoMom, so...

On St. Lucia the "Lucy Bride" wears white to honor St. Lucy's vow of virginity, and red to honor her martyrdom.

Yes, that is her wedding dress. The only white dress she had. Foxy.

In case others are wondering how you make such a crown, you start by buying a white foam circle, candles, and pilfering a bunch of what look like lingonberry-ish leaves from your front apartment complex the night before. This is how we attached them, after a lot of trial and error with puncturing the foam, staples, and glue:

Contemporary holiness. How they used to do it I have no idea.

One day our daughters will take over this, but for now our only child seemed shocked by the whole thing:

Her. Head. Is. On. FIRE! Am I the only one seeing this?

Breakfast is traditionally Lucy Cats, a type of saffron bun which is delicious and we made the night before, and coffee, which we don't normally drink. We're a tea family. But tradition is tradition, and Lucy Cats go really well with coffee.

I can't figure out how to turn the picture. Turn your head instead.

Before we eat we sing this song (they're singing it in Swedish, I'll put the English lyrics below:

"Night treads with heavy step, 

Round yard and hearth,

Woods brood in darkness now,

Sun's gone from Earth.

But through the darkness comes,

With brightness glowing,

Saint of the heavenly light,

Our Saviour showing!

(Chorus)

Maiden so sweet and fair,

Bright candles in your hair,

Santa Lucia,

Santa Lucia!

Child of the Holy Light

Banish the dark of night!

Santa Lucia,

Santa Lucia!

Night now goes great and mute,

Silence rules all things.

What is that murmuring,

As of an angel's wings?

There on our threshold

White robed and shining,

Comes she with bread to spare,

Our need divining.

(Chorus)

Darkness shall soon depart,

From vale and mountain.

She brings good news to us

Light like a fountain!

Soon day shall rise anew

Daystar is coming!

In skies of rosy hue,

Salvation's dawning!

(Chorus)

And that's St. Lucy day! We take a break from the Nativity Fast for today. Lucy Cats aren't terribly lenten, but they're very good. Another tradition is to share them with others, so we take some to the manager of the apartment, and are willing to share with anyone who might want to drop by today!

One more, because she's so pretty.

As for the rest of the week, Athanasius has a new fun game. He sits on Daddy's legs. Or feet. He does this because sometimes I lift him up or jiggle him.

He's blurry because of the jiggling, you see.

He's up to three teeth now, the doctor says he thinks the fourth will break forth (ha!) any day now. There's a pretty large bulge on his top gum, so yeah, Sharkbait will probably have another muncher any day now.

Which he finds appealing.

He's getting harder to get clear shots of too - he's so fidgety.

This being the season of showing everyone what you've done in the past year, we were trying to take a nice photo of our family. This was specifically as requested by my in-laws for their Christmas letter, and finally got one:

Aren't we just perfectly Stepford.

But not before this nonsense, which is perhaps more descriptive of our family life:

That baby face is hilarious.

This one I just call "The Truth"

But for now, we hope everyone has a very holy and blessed St. Lucy day. The song is very pretty and simple if you didn't listen to it. Having gotten up early for his Lucy Cat flavored milk breakfast, our spawn is gonna conk out, the lamb next to the demon.

If anybody wants the cat, she's generally well behaved except she's annoying as all get out. A great new pet!

Come, take her.