Lucia in Sweden

On the 13th of December every year we celebrate Lucia here in Sweden. It is a celebration filled with emotional tradition. I myself always get tears in my eyes when I see the procession and hear the songs. It is so beautiful and special. It really puts me in the pre-spirit of Christmas. The film above is filmed at my children's school yesterday morning. It was my daughter's year's turn to do the procession this year.

The rascal bunch with my daughter Arabella, furthest to the left.

Here's some information on Lucia that I have picked from Wikipedia

Saint Lucia's Day is the Church feast day dedicated to St. Lucy and is observed on the 13th of December. Its celebration is generally associated with Sweden and Norway, but is also observed in Denmark, Finland, and sometimes in a few other countries.

In the United States it is celebrated with cookies on the mantel in states with a large number of people of Scandinavian ancestry, often centered around church events.

In traditional celebrations, Saint Lucy comes as a young woman with lights and sweets. It is one of the few saint days observed in Scandinavia.

The current tradition of having a white-dressed woman with candles in her hair appearing on the morning of the Lucia day started in the late 18th century.

The modern tradition of having public processions in the Swedish cities started in 1927 when a newspaper in Stockholm elected an official Lucia for Stockholm that year. The initiative was then followed around the country through the local press. Today most cities in Sweden appoint a Lucia every year.

Schools elect a Lucia and her maids among the students and a national Lucia is elected on national television from regional winners. The regional Lucias will visit shopping malls, old people's homes and churches, singing and handing out pepparkakor (gingerbread).

Boys take part in the procession as well, playing different roles associated with Christmas. Some may be dressed in the same kind of white robe, but with a cone-shaped hat decorated with golden stars, called stjärngossar (star boys); some may be dressed up as tomtenissar (Santa's little helper), carrying lanterns; and some may be dressed up as gingerbread men.

A traditional kind of bun, Lussekatt (St. Lucia Bun), made with saffron, is normally eaten on this day.

Although St. Lucia's Day is not an official holiday in Sweden, it is a very popular occasion in Sweden.

Hope this has helped you to get in the Christmas spirit as much as I am now.

All my best,

Malin

Celebration! And a Give-away! Updated

Updated!

These are the beads in the give away. 100 beads and more. Art beads, gemstones, glass, ceramic, czech, resin, leather button, facetted, round, square and more. Take a chance, write a comment (see green text at the bottom of this post), spread the info about this give-away, become a follower unless you already are one. Drawing will be with a random number generator on Wednesday 21.00 Swedish time (GMT+1).

I've reached 100 followers on my blog!!!!!

I can't believe it. Thank you all of you who are interested in what I have to say, the things I do and what I like. When I started this blog almost a year ago it was from a suggestion by my husband, as a way of showing my jewellery to people who might be interested (and in the end it would hopefully help generating more business, he IS clever isn't he).

The plan/idea behind it has always been very simple:

It is a blog about my jewellery and beading. I show things I have made, things I am working on, ideas and things that inspire me. More imagery than writing. Short texts. Rather frequent updates, at least once a week, but preferably three to four times a week.

I am most often sponanteous about my posts. Don't plan them ahead and my writing style is direct (and therefor sometimes you see bad grammatics or miss-spelling, but I have decided to not worry too much about that).

I want this to be a place like one I would like to visit myself. A fresh mix of this and that, high and low, personal but not private, generous with links and tips (when I have any ...). Visually attractive. I go to other blogs and see wonderful layouts and usage of exciting templates, look at for instance Songbeads or FancifulDevices, and I sometimes think I want to do something similar, coz it makes me happy. But then I realize it just isn't me really. I am after all an Industrial Designer deep down. It became very obvious to me recently when I did the pictures for ABS January challenge, where I added text on the sides, mainly in order to make the actual image square coz it shows up a lot nicer in the post then. In my eyes it looks so typical "industrial design" with a bit of informative text added. And yes, I do like it. It improves my experience when I see things like that.

I don't know though if my jewellery style is clean and informative. I don't think so. I don't even know if I have a style as such. Would be nice to hear what you think. And I would also like to hear which kind of posts you like most, and if there is anything you would like to see more of or less of. Shower me in feedback!!!!!!

It might pay back even. By leaving a feedback comment you will enter my Celebration Give-away for 100 followers. I will put together 100 beads from my own stash. Give me a couple of days to get back and show you a photo of them. And I will use a random number generator to draw the winner. Let's say on Wednesday next week. Please leave a comment even if you happen to not be interested in winning the beads, (I know I have some none-beader followers out there). It means so much to get feedback!

All my best,

Malin

P.S.

I have marked in green the text which is about what you need to do to enter the give-away.