Santa Lucia

Gather round all you aunties and mama's and grandma's and people with little girls in your life. I've got a sweet gift idea for you.

Every year on December 13th, my cousin Kristin posts pictures of her oldest daughter all dressed up as Santa Lucia and serving her family cookies and hot chocolate for breakfast in bed. The pictures are adorable and as a good Swede I've been waiting patiently to get to do the same with my daughter one day.

A little background:
St Lucia was a young Christian girl who was martyred, killed for her faith, in 304AD. The most common story told about St Lucia is that she would secretly bring food to the persecuted Christians in Rome, who lived in hiding in the catacombs under the city. 

I found that paragraph written on this site, and there is lots more to read there if you're interested... And this was written on the Gustavus website:

According to Swedish legend, a ship carrying a maiden "clothed in white and crowned with light" appeared on the shore in Värmland during a great famine. The maiden, widely believed to be Lucia, distributed food and clothing to the needy, thus endearing herself to the Swedish people.

To celebrate Lucia and remember her generous giving and servant heart, daughters all over Sweden get up early on the morning of December 13th and serve their family wearing the traditional outfit.

So last year I decided to put together a few Lucia Kits for Elsie and my nieces Ruby, Nellie and Svea. And I want to share where I got all of it, so that you, too, could order all of this and have it ready by December 13th!

First, I found a really sweet book, Lucia Morning in Sweden, that explains the tradition nicely for little kids. I read it three times yesterday to my kids, so clearly it's a fun book for them as well as a good teaching about the holiday. Then I ordered the white robes from Oriental Trading. I got the red ribbon from JoAnn's and then found the candle head piece online as well. (And don't forget to get 5 AA batteries!)

Here's the list of what I got for my Lucia Kit with a few links for where you can order them from:
Lucia Morning in Sweden
White Robe (they have a few different sizes...)
Red Ribbon
Candle Crown
5 AA Batteries
Cookies or Lucia Buns (Lussekatter) or Ginger Snaps (Pepparkakor) The recipes for these are in the back of the children's book.

Elsie is excited to be "Princess Lucia." Ivar is very excited to get to eat cookies for breakfast. And I am the most excited to begin this tradition in our home! I got to be Santa Lucia at Gustavus when I was a sophomore. It was a sweet honor and I still am thankful my head didn't catch fire as I read the Bible during chapel with five lit candles on my head.

There also is a song that goes with the day and since I was in the Lucia Singers choir in college, I even know the song in Swedish. My kids like it as a lullaby and I like that I can sing it while reading the book to them.

I hope this idea gets some of you excited out there. It's such a fun family tradition and over the years I believe it will lead to so many good conversations: would you ever die for your faith? how can we live our lives with a generous and giving heart? what does it feel like to serve and be served? how do you think God has called you to be a light? I can't wait for those bigger conversations. Until then we'll just eat cookies for breakfast!

our christmas card

You may remember last Christmas when tinyprints contacted me to use some of their product. I ordered adorable stationary that I made into Thank You notes for houses in our town that had impressive Christmas light displays. Go back and read this blog post again if you're needing a laugh today. It's one of my favorite stories, full of awkwardness and good intention.

This year I opted for a more traditional order from tinyprints: their holiday cards. To get to work with this company pleased me to no end because it seems the cards I receive each December that have me flipping them over to see where they came from always come from tinyprints. They make lovely cards.

I spent one quick afternoon scanning all of the choices for Christmas cards, found the one picture of the five of us where I have my hair down since Harriet was born, and just like that, I had my Christmas cards ordered. It was so easy and I am so grateful to have such lovely cards to send out this year. 

And, as luck would have it, when I just set up the link to the tinyprints site, I saw that Christmas Cards are 50% off for cyber Monday. Hooray for a sale!

Now if only writing Harriet's thank you notes was as easy as ordering our Christmas card...

thankful for...

Today (I actually wrote this Friday...) I was in the kitchen and Ivar asked me to come and play a game with him. I sat down by the fireplace and started to roll the dice when Elsie yelled at me from the steps. I had told her that I would play Princess Carousel with her, a game where we sit on the steps and look through the banister rails pretending we are princesses. On a carousel. At the same moment Rory turned his laptop towards me and wanted me to watch a video of black friday stampedes with people behaving poorly and then the baby started crying from her bouncy seat.

And in that moment I had all four of my family members needing my attention. All four of them were within my sight all vying for me in some way and instead of feeling bothered, it made me feel happy. Because it was good. It is good to feel needed. And it was good because none of their demands were actually that demanding. Playing and pretending and watching and holding are all needs that are easily met. So today being needed made me feel thankful.

Later on in the day that same being needed thing made me feel agitated. Which means it was a typical day with a good mix of challenge and blessing. But way more blessing. And for each one of these awesome people in my daily life who need me and want me, I am very, very grateful.

a little family update

This week Elsie has been very into playing Lake Geneva / Mount Carmel. It's a mix of both places where we pretend we're at Bible Camp, and mostly we pretend we're sleeping on a bunk bed and then wake up to a bell and put our swim suits on to build sand castles. (And she thinks her winter hat from when she was a baby fits her "just perfect!")

Ivar spent much of his week working odd jobs to earn money for Blade, a toy helicopter from a movie he likes. He had $6 from his birthday and needed $4 to have enough to get Blade. Last week he lamented, "I want quarters, I just don't want to clean things to get them!" But that's how it works. He stopped working jobs for a few days, but this week he found the fire in his belly again and after putting the silverware away lots of times, cleaning the living room and gathering sticks in a bucket for our fire place, he finally earned enough.

Harriet had some tummy issues this week that kept us up a lot. And then we both got colds which is a bummer. I thought many times about how I had written that she is an easy baby, and how the last week was anything but easy. Funny how that happens. But last night she skipped a feeding, sleeping from 10-4 and I am hoping and praying that this might just become a thing. (Though she has slept most of today with her stuffy nose, and I've let her because I want her to feel better, so we'll see how tonight goes...but maybe it's a thing!) (Nope. Not a thing. We were up a lot last night...she can't breathe through her nose and this is very frustrating for her...)

Rory spent the last few weeks working late into the night. His work is like this...it ebbs and flows. And this season has proven to demand lots of hours. But he's been building a fire most days for us, which tends to keep everyone in a good mood.

And I have been reading books again, which feels so good. I read the three books I checked out at the library: Pioneer Woman's Black Heels to Tractor Wheels, her love story memoir where she writes a lot about her husband's large biceps. It was cute and funny. I read The Fringe Hours, which I didn't love. I thought I would, but there was much that was hard to relate to.  And I'm just wrapping up Scary Close, Donald Miller's latest book. And I'm loving this one. It's fast and full of stories and I always put the book down connecting his story to my own. I love that. 

So there's the update. Today we're starting to decorate the house for Christmas. I always have this hope to decorate in some orderly way where the house doesn't look like a bomb exploded after we get the boxes out of the garage. But my little elves are excited and even though I tried, I could not stop the christmas chaos from spreading all over every inch of my house. It will all find a home and hook, but until then my house looks more frenzied than festive. And it's okay. It is really okay. And I'll just keep telling that to myself until I actually feel okay about it...

neighborhood baby shower

Most of our neighbors have lived on this road for over three decades. We are the new kids on the block but have been welcomed in with love and kindness. This past Saturday our neighbor, Mary, hosted a baby shower for Harriet and nearly everyone on our road came for the brunch and gift opening. I was so grateful for this sweet time together. Harriet was showered with love and slept the whole time. (You can see her there on the couch in the forefront, being held by the woman who we bought our farm house from...now a friend who lives in town.)

Mary made homemade caramel rolls, egg bake, cheesy potatoes, scones, banana bread coffee cake, pumpkin muffins, an almond pastry, fruit salad and punch. Everything was from scratch and I ate my heart out. And then she sent a box home with us full of the leftovers and I ate my heart out some more.

I left feeling so grateful that my kids have neighbors that love and care for them and will look out for us. There is a contentment found in knowing your community and investing in your neighbors that can't be beat and I believe it is how God intended it from the beginning.