St. Lucia Breakfast 2013

Today we enjoyed our third annual St. Lucia breakfast!

At bedtime the night before, I read to the children the story of St. Lucia. I asked Mary if she would be serving me my coffee in bed, as per the Swedish tradition, and she answered, "No, I'm not old enough yet."

Note that John is wearing his space pajamas because he wanted some kind of costume. In order to give boys something to do on this very girl-centered feast day, some people dress up sons as "star boys" and give them hats and star-wand sort of things. I couldn't manage such a costume when it was urgently proposed to me the night before, so I suggested that wearing his 'star' pajamas would be perfect. Said with enough enthusiasm, this was accepted as a great idea.

In the morning, I set out some fancier dishes than usual and served gingersnaps (store-bought) and Lussakatter (store-bought cinnamon rolls from a tube!) along with our regular breakfast fare. (I skipped the traditional hot chocolate because I couldn't bring myself to give the children quite that much sugar in one meal!)

White robe for purity, red sash for martyrdom, and a wreath with candles on her head to remind us of when St. Lucia would delivery food to the Christians in the dark catacombs

Mary takes great pleasure in being the oldest daughter, so playing the role of the St. Lucia bride.

Margaret as an assistant to the St. Lucia bride

Another tradition on St. Lucia's feast day is to visit the elderly and sick, so the children decorated Christmas cards for the elderly homebound members of our parish. There are limited ways I feel we can serve others while I am caring for such little children (not exactly easy to march us all into a soup kitchen for the homeless, right?), but this is one of those ways that I hope will brighten someone's day.

Examples of Christmas drawings: a tree with flowers, a field of roses, and a whale.

Thanks go annually to my dear friend M. who taught me (among many things!) all about how to celebrate this darling feast day with children and lends me her St. Lucia crown until such as time she has grandchildren of her own!