Feast Your Eyes on These Recipes Celebrating Santa Lucia on December 13th

With the Christmas season fast-approaching children across the US will soon begin preparing for their school's annual Christmas pageants, a school tradition dating back for as long as I can remember. Which would be 40 plus years!

My teacher, Mrs. Di Tomaso, directed my sixth grade classroom's production of a Christmas play, whose title now escapes me. My best friend, Neecy and I had what you might call "two bit parts." I advanced on center stage dressed in traditional Italian fashion to say, "In Italy it is Buono Natale." Neecy, wearing a white dress with a crimson sash and a wreath into which four candles were inserted on her head, had an equally as short 15 seconds of fame telling the audience, "In Sweden it is God Jul och Gott Nytt År."

Those 15 seconds of fame serve as the inspiration for this story.

Elementary students often ask, "Why do I have to know this stuff? It's not like I'm going to use it when I grow up." I use to think the same thing too until I began writing this story. While it may have taken me 35 years, I did find a legitimate use for saying, "Buono Natale."

As I love to read and write about the history of the foods we eat especially when it's something delicious, I looked through some books on Christmas traditions involving foods from around the world. As I was reading, I discovered Italy and Sweden each hold annual festivals celebrating Santa Lucia on December 13^th.

Lucia was born in Siracuse, a city on the island of Sicily in 283 AD to a wealthy Roman landowner. Her well-to-do father died when she was five, leaving her mother, Eustichia, to raise her. As a young girl, Lucia was deeply touched by stories of St. Agatha, a well-respected saint from the nearby Sicilian town, Catania. Her admiration towards Agatha led Lucy to cast aside her pagan beliefs and turn to Christianity vowing to remain a virgin and give her possessions to those less fortunate.