Santa Lucia Ceremony & Celebration

Join Rising Sun Community School’s kindergarten class for their Santa Lucia procession and celebration.

JOIN US in the Community Room at the Jacksonville Center at 11:00 Thursday December 17. You will see our very own Santa Lucia procession, taste the traditional buns, enjoy hot apple cider, and meditate on how YOU bring light to darkness, courage to fear. We would love to have you as our special guests, and share the bringing of the Light!

Each year, we look at the many Celebrations of Light across the planet. We honor the thread of Light-Bringing that binds us together as a human family. No matter where you live on the Earth, there is surely a Celebration of Light that you observe! Diwali, Christmas, Hannukah, Solstice, Las Posadas….all of them are symbolic of bringing Light to the darkness.

Santa Lucia was a young girl who eschewed her life of wealth and privilege and chose instead to bring food and clothing by cover of stormy Winter nights to persecuted people living in seaside caves. To light her way, she wore candles on her head. To those she served, she was truly a beacon of Light in the darkness.

Each year in Sweden on December 13, the oldest girl in the family wakes before dawn and dons a candle headpiece. She wakes her family softly singing, delivering to them a traditional Swedish bun, breaking the darkness with her gift of song, light, and nourishment. Her siblings follow her dressed in similar manner as her attendants. It is a beautiful tradition that truly reflects the kindness and goodness of which the human race is capable.