December 13th, Lucia, is an important day for me and many others - time for beautiful music and people roaming the streets in long white robes. (A tall teenage boy in a white dress and pointy white hat is really endearing!) At school it was even more important, at least for me who likes to sing and always has been in the school choirs. This is an old photo from playschool. I am six years old and has a four year old brother and a baby sister. Even at this young age, I was already an experienced Lucia celebrator and had played all the important roles; as maid of Lucia, Santa´s little helper and whatnot our teachers could come up with to suit every little boy´s and girl´s taste. In playschool everyone who wanted could be Lucia, then the number decreased slowly to three and then to one in high school and gymnasium. I guess this is the last time I was Lucia, then I was forever a maid because I didn´t have long blonde hair. *Dramatic sigh* Anyway, it was the singing I liked best!And for those who still doesn´t know which of the girls is me, I´m the dark and curly one to the right with the crown on the loose. Rather sweet, I must say, with these three little Lucias. (We seem to have gobbled up our gingerbread and lussekatts already, or are we waiting for it? The napkins look pretty spotless.)
Have a nice Lucia!
5 comments:
wow, nice picture! so this is the one you said this morning that you were digging out...!
to be honest with you, i found this long blonde thing is rather discriminatory - i don't want children (or even adult!) get disappointed for not being able to play the Lucia role because of the colour of the hair if they want to play the role... but maybe people would say it's a tradition? ;-)
but my friend who's playing Lucia tomorrow at the office does have a very beautiful long blonde hair - and she's a good friend of mine, so i'm happy to see her in the white Lucian costume and candles! Gotta bring the camera tomorrow...! Happy Lucia day! =)
I know, it is completely crazy with this blonde Lucia-hype. Especially since the original Lucia was Italian... It is too much pressure for teenage girls with this kind of beauty contest I think. The sweetest Lucia I have seen was the one in third grade of gymnasium, she was called Melissa and was an exchange student from Bundaberg, Australia. She had been in Sweden just a couple of months and didn´t know Swedish but learned all the verses she was supposed to read by heart. That was impressing!
Bundaberg is close to Brisbane, where I am studying! It's famous for ginger beer and rum (which are really good by the way) as a lot of sugar canes grow in that region...
We had our Lucia celebration this afternoon at the office. In fact I wanted to join a choir but dropped out because it was almost impossible to learn the songs in Swedish by heart within such a short period of time...
Oh, and I recalled that this year's Lucia in Stockholm has a long dark hair, not blond... It's a good move, isn't it?! Something that I thought I should point out as well. ;-)
I am just SO charmed by the entire Santa Lucia holiday. Thank you for letting me (us) know all about it! So differnt than anything I have ever known, and yet, I am 1/4 Swedish. Crazy stuff.
Have a wonderful celebration.
xoxox-
Rachael
For you Lucia fans all over the world! Follow this link http://svt.se/svt/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=22620&a=504014&lid=puff_504067&lpos=lasMer and then click on Luciafirande (by the tiny little camera). Note picture nr six, that´s our crown princess Victoria. And of course the last picture of the cat. That´s a game with words here. Lussekatt - that´s the bread but also the word katt is cat.
I wish I could find somewhere on the internet where you could listen to the songs, they are so beautiful! I have a tape at home with my gymnasium Luciatåg with Melissa reading the verses though. Come visit me and I´ll play it for you!
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