Happy Sankta Lucia Day! What? You didn't know it is Sankta Lucia day? Well it is. So hope it was a happy one. It was a happy one in our house for two reasons. Reason #1 - SNOW! Finally - a serious storm and we love it. Reason #2 - although we were unable to attend the Swedish heritage society's annual Lucia celebration - we were able to hold our own celebration thanks to our great friends the Blums. We got a mysterious package yesterday. After determining it was not ticking and therefore not a bomb we opened it to find an awesome Lucia crown.
I won't go into the historical aspects of Lucia because you can read that elsewhere (like here) but I will tell you that for families, the tradition goes like this. First, the oldest daughter of the family dresses up like Lucia in the morning and wakes the rest of her family with Saffron Buns and Lucia songs. School usually ends early on that day and neighbors gather for songs, food, and fun that night. (night starts about 2:00 in the winter in Sweden so I don't actually have any idea what time they gather. I just remember it was dark which is why the light brought by Sankta Lucia is so important.)
Right on schedule this morning, Lainey woke us up at 5:45! Unfortunately she forgot the costume and she didn't even OFFER us anything to eat which was pretty rude I thought. Since she didn't have all the elements right we told her to go back to bed. Sheesh. Some people's children.
Later however she did come up with her own costume and asked if I would video her signing the Lucia song. Sure, I said (desperately curious to see how she would do with the Swedish lyrics that I'm sure she does not know.) It was pretty awesome. Actually, I'm pretty sure this is just what I look like when we go to the Messiah sing in, minus the crown of course. Here it is....
The video takes forever to upload so while I'm waiting I might as well include a few other funny things. Last week Romney dressed up as his favorite superhero for a few days straight. I'm not sure if it is Fighter-man or Spiderman (I think he is saying Fighter-man personally but after many attempts to interpret I'm still stumped.) Romney can't decide if he is a good guy or a bad guy so it changes from minute to minute. He did a lot of dancing on the table this day in addition to his other superhero good deeds.Lainey really likes smoothies and they tend to make her look just like the Joker.
So who knows, maybe she is really the bad guy.Other fun things leading up to Christmas.....
Christmas Tree Hunting in Wayne County. I know what you are thinking. What? The Jacksons? I heard they were democrat tree hugging environment lovers. They cut down trees!?! Well get over it - we do. Plus, this year we did it without a permit! Okay, that was actually an accident. The permit place was closed when they told us they would be open. We'd driven the three and a half hours from Salt Lake so we couldn't exactly go home empty handed. This would be our 5th year or so getting trees in this area and we've always been legal and we've NEVER seen a ranger....until this year. Luckily, it was a nice ranger and she didn't give us the nearly $1000 ticket that we technically deserved and let us off with a warning and directions for how to pay for the trees we got (we had 6 trees for various people when we were stopped!) So anyway - the ranger we met in Salina assured us that we were helping him by removing the "weeds" from his forest. He said, "we pay crews to burn them, teams to spray them with poison, and then we charge YOU to go cut one down. Isn't America great?" He was a pretty funny guy. And luckily not in the mood to throw us in the slammer. So now we don't even have to feel guilty about having a live tree! They were going to kill it anyway. Now it gets to have a few weeks of love, lights, and ornaments before it dies. That is how I want to go out.
Family Home Evening with the Christmas lights. (These are the only two pictures where someone was not crying. I don't know what it is but going to the lights makes my kids unable to walk and/or gives them great desires to roll around on the sidewalk.) Lainey had a really itchy leg as well which led to this funny picture. (suit unzipped, coat unzipped, pajamas unzipped, hand satisfying the itchy thigh. Goofy girl.)
3 comments:
Lainey is a wonderful lucia- what a lovely rendition of the song. My grandma used to dress me up and make me sing that song when I was little.
THANK YOU. Jim you are a good writer, and much more reliable than Marie lately. I was pretty mad and sad when I didn't see a post Friday morning. Love the post and all the pictures. And thanks for making me feel good about having a live tree. I promise one of these days I will contribute to the work or at least the gas. I can't wait to go next year. :) I need to get ahold of that crown and make it pretty with some pine and the like. How fun, I always wanted to do that. You should show her the American Girl book where Kristen does that at Christmas.
love the video...and love the stories!
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