{"id":86,"date":"2012-12-16T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T10:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/?p=86"},"modified":"2014-03-31T15:54:24","modified_gmt":"2014-03-31T15:54:24","slug":"santa-lucia-comes-to-brooklyn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/santa-lucia-comes-to-brooklyn\/","title":{"rendered":"Santa Lucia comes to Brooklyn"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Guest post by Diane Saarinen<\/a><\/p>\n

Just before dawn, December 13th, any year: It\u2019s always the same in our household. Sweet gingerbread cookies on a festive holiday plate, (non-alcoholic) glogg warming on the stove. I am already wearing the white flannel nightgown and red sash, frantically glancing at the clock and listening for sounds of reassuring snoring (I mustn\u2019t wake him yet!) from my husband. I adjust my crown of candles. The candles are battery-operated. I don\u2019t dare wear live ones \u2013 I have no Star Boys following me with a bucket of water and I am far too accident-prone.<\/p>\n

Star Boys. December 13th. It can only mean one thing. Santa Lucia Day is here!<\/p>\n

The Santa Lucia pre-dawn ritual is carried out in Sweden and Finland, where the December days are so dark it\u2019s not hard to imagine the anticipation surrounding the \u201creturn of the light\u201d. Although she was a Sicilian saint, somehow the legend of Lucia emerging from the cold winter darkness, her bright halo created by the crown of candles all aglow all the while carrying a tray of glogg (a hot mulled drink) and lussekatter (Lucy Cat pastries) while sweetly singing the Lucia song, has become a beloved seasonal tradition in the Nordic countries.<\/p>\n

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Our celebration here in Brooklyn is improvised, naturally. It\u2019s the oldest daughter in the Scandinavian household who is Lucia \u2013 not the middle-aged wife I am. However, my husband and I have no children together. Age is relative, after all!<\/p>\n

Another thing. I never did this as a child. My considerable interest in all things Finnish only became evident after my Finnish parents had passed away. It was a sad realization I had one day when I contemplated not hearing the sounds of \u201cFinnglish\u201d again, while remembering beloved customs of our culture that we did celebrate:  the food (Karelian pastries and \u201cSwedish\u201d meatballs); the holidays (hyv\u00e4\u00e4 joulua! \u2013 Merry Christmas! \u2013 complete with joulupukki, a very special Santa); and the attitude (sisu it\u2019s called \u2013 look up this untranslatable word). So one December morning, over a decade ago, I created what is now a tradition for our family, the hybrid Brooklyn-Finnish Santa Lucia morning. Pikkujoulu (Little Christmas) is here! Happy Holidays.<\/p>\n

Diane Saarinen is a publicist, Media Goddess, and runs the Saima Agency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by Diane Saarinen Just before dawn, December 13th, any year: It\u2019s always the same in our household. Sweet gingerbread cookies on a festive holiday plate, (non-alcoholic) glogg warming on the stove. I am already wearing the white flannel nightgown and red sash, frantically glancing at the clock and listening for sounds of reassuring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":174,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marysharratt.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}