Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Luciadagen

What a lovely way to start the day: in the darkness of the Finnish winter morning, several dozen people gathered at the Institute for Nordic Languages at the university this morning to sing carols and share coffee and cookies. Some carols were sung simultaneously in four languages! For more about St. Lucia's Day, you can visit here or here.
As a kid (I must have been ten or so - it was before my brother was born), I brought my parents breakfast on December 13th with candles on my head. They fell off as I was climbing the stairs - luckily there was just a little damage to the carpet, but that was my first and last time as Lucia. This morning's Lucia used battery operated candles - so smart.
(The painting is 'Lucia' (1908) by Carl Larsson, one of my favorite artists.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is so cool. When I was little I had a set of the childcraft series by worldbook encyclopedias I think and one of my favourite 'stories' was about Luciadagen!

Libby said...

Glad you were not hurt by the falling candles. I bet it was lovely to hear the carols being sung in multiple languages -- what an experience to treasure *s*

Lily Mulholland said...

Oh how amazing that sounds! A million miles from a long hot Australian summer!