St. Lucy Day
Today is the Feast of St. Lucy in the Catholic calendar. Traditionally, in Sweden, the youngest daughter of the household serves breakfast to the rest of her family, usually dressed in a white gown and wearing a wreath with candles on her head. I'm sure you've all seen pictures of this.
Today was aslo special for the Loncar family -- Nina's sister Tanya's two youngest daughters, seven-year-old Laila and baby Jasmina, were baptised at St. Antonius' Catholic Church, along with NINE other children! It was a mass baptism; the first one I've ever witnessed except at the Easter Vigil. The church is small and rather stark but quite interesting in its own right. Nina was godmother to Jasmina while our friend Bettina was godmother to Laila. No godfathers for the girls but apparently that was okay. It was a bit confusing with ten children being baptised but the ceremony ran quite smoothly and wasn't overly long.
Naturally the entire ceremony was in German and most of it went right over my head, but that was okay. It was just fun to be inside a church (any church) again after more than a year and witnessing a Christian rite. I did sing a couple of the hymns, and no, they weren't familiar ones, but having been in several types of choruses while in school, I learned to sight-read, more or less, so I was able to follow along easily enough.
Afterwards, family and friends returned to the farm for a scrumptuous meal ending with DESSERT! There were... count them... FIVE different homemade cakes, including Black Forest, a cheese cake, a fruit torte and Reinhilde's famous apple cake. A perfect ending, if I say so myself. A good thing tomorrow is a barn day... I get to work off all those cakes. *grin*