Lucia comes and goes

The Grahams spent Christmas 2000 and Christmas 2001 in Stockholm Sweden. We had the immense good fortune of spending 18 months total in Sweden-and I feel it was one of the most defining experiences in the life of this family. We soaked in the good of another culture, we made efforts to learn a new language, we were loved and accepted by people who were different from us, and we became more deeply devoted to the gospel we live and espouse to believe in. We decided to bring some of Sweden's culture into our family rituals and traditions for good, to help us remember these defining and life changing experiences. Lucia Day, the Birthday celebration song and Midsummer celebration were the things we wanted to promote among all things Graham (oh, and Swedish country interior design, and Gustavian style furniture, and the eating of cheese with bread for breakfast and the making of kanelbullar and swedish meatballs and the purchase of most things IKEA and being willing to sing in church. I think I've still forgotten some things, but you get the general idea).

Over the years we've really "done up" our celebrating of Swedish Holidays. But, some years we've barely celebrated at all (last year is a case in point; we were in Africa sans lucia kladder-which means clothing-and the special ingredients needed to make the Lucia bullar-or buns-on Lucia Day so we had to celebrate by Bryn bringing us cereal in bed). This year we missed midsummer entirely.

LuciaDay 2008 found us with John a little under the weather and Katie very unprepared (no special Lucia bullar made, oh no!). But we had a special box of NEW LUCIA GOWNS, candles, crowns and the like (THANK YOU SISSEL!!!) so I was determined for us to celebrate somehow. The day progressed and buns were prepared, and stored for a day late celebration.

Early morning Sunday found me rousting our kids from their warm beds, milk scorching on the stove to make bribe-worthy hot chocolate, and Mason for the first time ever finding fault with our tradition ("man this hat is so pointy, its hard for me to keep in on my head with all the curls I've got goin'these days. Sigh). The little girls were eager to do something that for them was new and magical. Porter was glad he didn't have to "wear the dress" as he now has a very manly "pepparkakor boyken" (gingerbread boy) costume that will serve him for a few years to come. Buns were placed on plates, Dad went back to his bed. The music of Lucia filled our home and the kids marched in to deliver the warmth of the holiday season to their father in his pretended slumber. Then buns and hot choclate went 'round and 'round. That holiday warmth we felt had so little to do with the scorched milk in our bellies...

Lucia is the saint of light. In Sweden she comes in the darkness of the year, reminding those of the frozen North that though their days at present are grey and short, the light is not lost or even fading. It is coming. And as we think of light in the grey of our world I hope we will remember the same....

"Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

"I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end."

"And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning."

Behold, I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I am the life and the light of the world.