Presents over presents and Saint Lucy's Day

According to the pictures you may think that Santa Claus has been very generous with me this year – well, not exactly. All these presents come from people around the town, who want to give them to poor families and their children, especially refugees. They are collected in the local shopping center underneath a huge Christmas tree, where we picked them up to bring them to Frivilligsentralen. To make sure that nobody is playing a prank on those people in need, for example with diapers inside the packages, we had to open all the presents and sort them into things for girls, boys, teenagers and adults. I felt very sorry for the waste of Christmas paper and in the end we did not even find a single thing which could not have been given to someone. Which is a good thing in the first place, but still it was a pity…

But two things are for sure: First – I have never opened so many presents in my life at once, probably not even in my whole life (and I didn’t think you can ever get sick of unpacking presents, but you can, trust me – probably because they were not meant to be mine :D). Second – It seems like it is the easiest way to find stuff for young girls by buying just everything that is connected with the movie “Frozen”. I don’t know on how many Elsa’s and Anna’s I Iooked today :D But on the whole it was quite funny and I think it is a really nice way of letting people in need enjoy Christmas’ small pleasures :)

Moreover we had Saint Lucy’s Day this week, which is celebrated instead of Saint Nicholas' Day. In Scandinavian countries “Lucy (called Lucia) is venerated on 13 December in a ceremony where a girl is elected to portray Lucia. Wearing a white gown with a red sash and a crown of candles on her head, she walks at the head of a procession of women, each holding a candle. The candles symbolize the fire that refused to take St. Lucy's life when she was sentenced to be burned. The women sing a Lucia song while entering the room, to the melody of the traditional Neapolitan song Santa Lucia. Each Scandinavian country has lyrics in their native tongues. After finishing this song, the procession sings Christmas carols or more songs about Lucia.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Lucy%27s_Day)

Personally I haven’t seen anything of this ceremony because I had to work. There was nobody who could really explain to me who Saint Lucy was or why they celebrate this day, so I had to google it. But at least we made the traditional saffron buns, the so-called ‘Lussekatter’, in the canteen, which are rich, spiced, yeast-leavened sweet buns, flavored with saffron and cinnamon or nutmeg. They were nice, but not really special. Probably because we used yellow food coloring instead of saffron – it would have been too expensive. One day I just try to make them myself the right way, I’ll show you then :)

Ha det bra!

Alisa