December 2021 Part 1: St. Lucia and St. Nick

 We kicked off the Christmas season by attending a special St. Lucia program in a church in Salt Lake City. The celebration of St. Lucia is a Swedish tradition that commemorates the martyr Lucia of Syracuse, who brought food to Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs back in the 300s, at least according to legend. She was killed by Romans in 304 because of her beliefs. The festival is usually celebrated on December 13, and involves girls wearing white dresses and wreaths in their hair. The wreaths also hold candles. Our next door neighbors are from Sweden, and they invited us to come. Beatris and two of her daughters performed, Beatris on her violin and the girls in the Lucia procession. It was really cool. I remember learning about this tradition back in elementary school, and it was really cool to actually be a part of it. And we got to sing songs in Swedish.

We had to laugh that Rachel and Bianca matched. 

Beatris and I. 

Apparently, the white sweater dress was the dress code. Here's Rachel with Bianca and Esther. 

They even had a Santa Claus who had a sack of goodies for each kid. 

He could speak Swedish to our sweet neighbor girls, which I thought was pretty cool. And he wished us all "God Jul" (pronounced like Good Yule). 

And speaking of Santa, Gabe wrote him a letter this year. 

And carefully addressed it. 

And went with me to go drop it in the mail. 

At our ward Christmas breakfast, there was another Santa. 

Hopefully, the message of what these kiddos wanted for Christmas got through.