Every December 13th, Sweden celebrates St. Lucia by welcoming the light and dressing children as angels with lit candle crowns on their heads. Calvin's dagis invited all of the children and parents to attend their St. Lucia celebration. Not knowing what costume to get for Calvin, I headed to the nearest Åhlens department store and found a TON of options. Calvin could dress as St. Lucia herself (oh gender neutral Sweden), a star boy, tomte (Santa elf), or a gingerbread kid. I thought that the St. Lucia outfits would look better on the girls (I'm sexist, sorry) and that the Santa outfit would be adorable, but expected by our American friends. So when I found the gingerbread outfit with a cute cap I thought it would be absolutely perfect.
What Calvin really looked like under his snow suit
Already a little grumps...should've known!
Jon and I head off to dagis with Calvin in the dark (it is a procession of light after all) and are super excited to see Calvin in our first Swedish St. Lucia celebration. We arrive and I notice that all of the kids have their St. Lucia costumes on the outside of their snow pants and jackets. Ahhhh! What?!? Nobody will get to see Calvin's gingerbread costume because it was inside his snowclothes. I had no idea they were going to have the procession outside. I didn't know! Despite translating every email and talking with the teachers I had still, somehow, missed that important memo. Feeling like a St. Lucia rookie, we just put his gingerbread hat on his head and sent him off with the teachers.
Parents are eagerly waiting with cameras on
I'm not sure if Calvin didn't like the snow, the audience or the fact that we were still there but he was being held by someone else, but the Christmas carols being sung by the children was punctuated by a few Calvin cries every now and then. The kids looked super cute and some were very enthusiastic singers. Calvin was happy enough and we managed to snap a bunch of pictures.
After the singing was over, parents gathered around for coffee, saffron buns and cookies. Calvin was still not so thrilled that we were mixing worlds -- home and school, so Jon and I had to leave a little early as Calvin made it expressly clear that he was not happy with us. The kids were absolutely adorable and this is one of my new favorite holidays ;-)
St. Lucia leads the way
Calvin being held by one of Santa's helpers (teacher)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave your thoughts here