Santa Lucia
Read on Minnesota Public Radio
By Nanci Olesen
Each year on this day at dawn, the oldest
daughter in a Swedish household wears a
long white robe, with a red sash at her
waist and a crown of lit candles on her
head. She is Santa Lucia, portraying the
young Sicilian woman, who in thirteenth
century Rome, gave away her dowry to the
poor. Her fiance thought that was a bad
idea and had her burned at the stake. He
was frightened by the radical religion
she was practicing: Christianity. The story
goes that this young girl did not burn
when flames were lit at her feet. She stood
within the flames, still very much alive.
A traveling Swede heard of this miracle
and brought the story back to his dark
and cold land. Lucia became the image of
radiance, the bringer of light. An old
Italian tune is sung with Swedish words:
“Natten gar tunga
fjutt runt gar och stuva,
kring jord som sor fjullet,
sku gorna ruva.”
In
just a few moments, my girls, ages 9 and
11, will put on white dresses in the
dark morning, as I stand nearby with the
light of a single candle. They will tie
red sashes around their waists. Just the
other day my son asked, “MOM. Do
I have to be a star boy this year?” He’s
fourteen. “Naw...” I said,
trying to act casual. He has worn the Star
Boy hat and carried a white paper star
on a stick, like a wand, preceding his
sisters down the stairs, for years.
I will
wait upstairs with the girls in the darkness
until I hear our friends arrive.
I will nervously light the candles on their
crowns. At seven a.m. I will walk down
the stairs and begin the Santa Lucia song
on the piano. My first chords will probably
be tentative and my voice will be raspy.
Our daughters will come down the stairs,
radiant Santa Lucias. I always have to
carefully not look at them so that I won’t
start to cry.
They will cluster in front
of our guests and read the lines of the
Santa Lucia story
that they practiced last night.
Then we
all sing “Angels We have
Heard on High.” The girls’ faces
will glow from the lit candles on their
heads. We will serve an early morning feast
of smoked fish, cheese, hardboiled eggs
and coffee cakes.
This is how we begin
our Christmas season. We tell this bold
story of a woman doing
what she believed in and transcending
her punishment to stand, alive, amidst
the
flames. The light of the candles swelling
into the darkness is the heart of the
season ahead.
—Nanci Olesen
producer and host, MOMbo: 1990-2007 |
