St.+Lucia+Day

=St. Lucia Day=

. Lucia Day is celebrated on December 13 in Sweden, but also in Finland, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Bosnia, and Croatia. It is celebrated to honor St. Lucia, she use to go around at night through secret tunnels to deliver food to Christians that were hiding from the Romans. She would deliver them buns that are now called today Lucia Buns. She would wear a crown of candles to limedia type="youtube" key="Mk0FyZqNp5Q" width="425" height="350" align="right"ght her way through the dark tunnels, she would wear the candles on her head because her hands were full with all of the buns. So now today in honor of her the oldest girl in a family must dress up like Lucia by dressing up in a white dress, a red sash around her waist, and the crown of candles and serve her family Lucia buns, in countries and in Sweden they have a ceremony were a girl is elected to portray Lucia, she walks at the head of a procession of women, each holding a candle, while walking the women sing “A Lucia Song”. On St. Lucia Day they eat julbord or a buffet and it is eaten in courses. First course is cold fish, such as cold herring, gravlax, and smoked salmon; all are normally eaten with a side of bread and water. Second course is cold meats, such as turkey, roast beef, and julskinka (Christmas ham); they are eaten with cheeses, liver pate, salads and pickles also bread and butter. Third course is savory food which is meatballs, prinskorv media type="youtube" key="VZsgFPpBMfA" width="425" height="350" align="left"(sausages), koldomar (meat stuffed cabbage rolls), jellied pigs feet, ltfisk (dried cod with a thick white sauce), revbenspjall loven (roasted pork ribs) eaten with red cabbage and jansson frestelse (matchstick potatoes layered with cream onions and anchovies that are baked to a golden brown) also bread dipped in broth and juices from the ham. The last course is desert such as pudding, risgrynsgrot (rice porridge that’s eaten with hallonsylt [raspberry jam] or sprinkled with some cinnamon) or selection of sweet pastries [Lucia Buns]. They drink glogg or wine and coffee with every thing.

Symbol of light The symbol of light in this holiday is the crown of candles. St. Lucia would wear the crown of candles on her head to light the way through the tunnels when she was delivering the food to the other Christians. The fires on the candles also represent the fire that would not take Lucia's life when she was sentenced to burn because she would bring the food to the other Christians.

Links [|Info about ST. Lucia Day] [|Info about St. Lucia Day 2] [|Info about St. Lucia Day 3] [|Info about St. Lucia Day 4]