The Feast of Santa Lucia in This Year of Our Lord without a Functioning Kitchen

Today is the feast day of Santa Lucia.  For a more traditional approach to this feast day, go to this post on my theology blog.  

This feast day may have been the first one I ever celebrated, although I wouldn't have thought of it as a feast day back in my early teenage years.  My Lutheran church in Charlottesville, Virginia had some sort of evening event, and I was part of the procession.  As an older girl, I got to wear the crown of candles.  Yes, real candles, lit, with wax running down them.

I often look back and am amazed at all the risks we took in my younger years.  After having a friend lose almost everything to a house fire, I am much more leery of open flame.

A recent Facebook exchange gave me much St. Lucia happiness.  One of my grad school friends posted this invitation:  "Come sing the songs of the winter holidays at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia Saturday the 22nd! (I'm personally hoping someone will show up wearing a St. Lucia crown of burning candles!)"

I responded, "OOOOOOOHHHHHHH! If I lived in Columbia, I would so show up in a Lucia crown with fresh, warm, home made bread!"

My friend replied, "Your golden red hair lit with candles -- that would be a glorious sight!"

If I lived in Columbia, I would likely have a functioning kitchen and could actually show up with bread warm from my oven.  Sigh.

I tell myself that it's O.K. that I'm not baking this holiday season--I tell myself this every holiday season, but most seasons, I could bake if I wanted to.  Even now, I could--we do have a functioning oven in the cottage.  I think it's functioning, but I'm now realizing that we haven't tested it since Hurricane Irma.

Maybe that will be my mission this week-end:  to test the oven by baking some holiday bread.  I also want to reset the air conditioning units to the dehumidify option to see if we could move the dehumidifier to the main house for the winter and not leave the cottage vulnerable to mold.

You won't find these kinds of scenes in holiday movies, but maybe we should.