St Lucia Celebration in our Home

On Monday we celebrated the feast of St Lucia This is one of our children's favourite celebrations. Here are some different traditions in other countries too.
We do not have a special meal but we have created a desert we call Eye ball Custard.
We also make St Lucia bread but using the same recipe we use for Donuts and Hot Cross Buns with added spices and sultanas. We then place icing and chopped up apricots on to...very yummy.

Just a quick note ~ my camera seems to be over exposing with the flash on so some of the photo's aren't as good as they would normally be. Anyone got any ideas on what might be wrong or what I could do to fix it?
For most of our feast days we make table decorations and 'favours' to keep in a special box. Last year we made everyone a St Lucia and a star boy (above) as well as a few to be kept for each year as table decorations.
This year I wasn't up to this so I made little pipe cleaner St Lucia Crowns
and paper Star Boy hats. Once again everyone gets one of each.
All the table decorations together before setting the table.
Table set ready for dinner
Crown and Star Boy hat for each person
This is the famous Eye ball custard. Gross isn't it? The children made it up many years ago.
We make custard as normal and then colour it red, to represent blood of course. The eye balls are made of marshmallow covered in melted chocolate and a whited chocolate bud placed on top. To eat you place eyeballs into bowl and cover with "blood."
Here is our St Lucia bread. It rose so much that it lost it's crown shape. All the more to eat though.
One of our traditions is to have a "Festival of Light" in our home. We turn out all the lights after placing candles around the house and after a lighting ceremony of prayer and reading of the St Lucia story as well as an explanation of the association of light in the advent season we then process throughout the house lighting the candles and singing a hymn about light. The one we have chosen is this one, Walk in the Light,( I cannot find the words any where for this version, but we have sung it for many years, this is the tune only no words) mainly because it is catchy and has reoccurring lines. Very important for singing in the dark if you can't read the music.
Below are some of the candles we lit around the house singing as we went. After we had made a circle around and come back to the kitchen we then eat our St Lucia bread.
That then completes our celebration of this day.



















Saint Lucy:
You did not hide your light under a basket,
but let it shine for the whole world,
for all the centuries to see.
We may not suffer torture in our lives the way you did,
but we are still called to let the light of our Christianity
illumine our daily lives.
Please help us to have the courage
to bring our Christianity into our work, our recreation, our relationships, our conversation
every corner of our day.
Amen

Blessings,