St. Lucia breakfast 2012

The little Lucia bride

Our St. Lucia breakfast: hot chocolate and Lussekatter which, for limited energy on my part, were reshaped out of store-bought cinnamon buns.

Here's a story that would have scandalized me before I had a young son: Last night, John was wistfully regretting that there was no costume for the boy on St. Lucia's day. I encouraged him that we had just had a boy's saint day, St. Nicholas, but he retorted that there was no dressing up on that day. He then suggested, "I know! Since St. Lucia was martyred by evil soldiers, I could dress as a soldier! I could use my black shield and sword!" Then Mary piped up enthusiastically, "He could pretend to drive a sword through my throat!"

We Catholics don't hide martyrdom from our growing-up children. They got the line "drive a sword through her throat" straight out of the children's book we own about St. Lucia (which also explained how she was miraculously too heavy to move and didn't burn at the stake, but, for some reason, withheld that her eyes were gouged out). I had to laugh.

Thankfully, a mom-friend of mine had the idea to appease John by letting him be the Candle Boy today. That made him feel much better this morning.

Later today we will try to fulfill the St. Lucia tradition of visiting and providing joy to the elderly by continuing our project this week of drawing Christmas cards for shut-ins. I got the idea from another homeschooling friend of mine, who does this with her five children and who explained to me that most parishes will share their list of shut-ins (to whom the parish delivers the Eucharist at home), which turned out to be true. The children have been diligently coloring cards all week and painstakingly writing "MERRY CHRISTMAS." I think it's very important purposefully to devise ways to draw children's (and our) attention away from ourselves and toward others in need as we approach Christmas. With how many lavish gifts children receive in this day and age, the pull to focus only on the receiving is overwhelming and it takes a lot of effort, I find, to counteract it at all.

My other posts on St. Lucia's feast day can be found here.