During the Christmas season I like to wear a necklace my Grammie gave me years ago. The necklace is made of pewter and is a representation of the Swedish St. Lucia- a girl wearing a long white dress with a red sash and wearing a crown of candles. My family belongs, partly, to a Swedish heritage, and I enjoy wearing the necklace to remind me of my ancestry and the Christmas traditions our family follows.
Each year one of the girls in our family would dress in the traditional costume of St. Lucia and we would walk around the family gathered on Christmas Eve and present them with Swedish cookies and coffee. The traditional St. Lucia song, sung in Swedish, would be playing in the background, or one of the talented cousins might play the song on a musical instrument. St. Lucia was a martyr who, in the dark, tied flaming candles to her head so she could see to carry food to Christians hiding in catacombs in Sicily during the Roman rule. Each girl in the family had the opportunity to be St. Lucia, as she might have been in ancient times, by spreading light and the gift of nourishment to family members during a dark time of year.
Christmas time brings so many memories to mind- excellent foods, big presents, singing, excitement, loud families and laughter. However, the traditions my family carried on through the years will follow me through my life and will forever lay as memories on my mind. I am glad to have my necklace as a reminder of so many happy occasions.
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