Tomorrow is St. Lucia’s Day. Even, if your oldest daughter doesn’t serve breakfast to your family in bed, you can still learn about this Swedish tradition. I’ve included a short version of St. Lucia’s story below so your kids can do one of our Christmas writing activities. After reading the story with your kids, let them outline the story and re-write it in their own words.
In the 2nd century, St. Lucia was a young girl living in Italy with her mother. Even though Christianity was banned, Lucia was a strong Christian believer. She thought her family should give away their wealth to the poor, but others in her family disagreed.
Lucia’s mother became very ill & was persuaded to travel to a Christian holy place. After several days, her mother was cured of her illness. As a way of saying thanks, she agreed to give her wealth to the poor. After this event, the government discovered that Lucia was a believer and put her to death.
Hundreds of years later, Lucia was declared a saint for her good deeds. Lucia’s name means light, thus she became the saint of light & vision.
St. Lucia’s Day was celebrated in only a few Swedish villages until recently. It was believed those villagers could see Lucia serving hot rolls and drink to the poor nearby.
Today, the oldest daughter of the house dresses up in all white to symbolize light. She serves hot Lucia buns & coffee as breakfast in bed. Serving the buns reminds us of Lucia serving the poor in her area. December 13 is one of the shortest days of the year. In Sweden, the sun shines for only one hour. What a contrast between light and dark, an excellent reminder that Lucia represents light & goodwill in this fallen world.
Christmas Writing Activities – St. Lucia’s Story
As you outline this story, be sure to include the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when, why, how). Or, you can get our Story Outline by filling in your first name and primary email below.
After your rough draft is completed, set it aside for a day. The following day you can edit for punctuation, grammar, dress-ups and sentence openers. Be sure your sentences do not always start with a subject. Vary the way you begin your sentences. If you need some ideas, use Teaching Writing Structure & Style Unit 2.
Another one of our Christmas writing activities our kids did each year was to write a Christmas letter.
I often included their paragraph in our family Christmas letter.
You can get my Christmas letter writing activity for free by entering your name & email below.
Which Christ
Question: What’s your favorite Christmas tradition from another country? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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