St.Lucia

Well yesterday I had a new experience in my life. I was invited to a swedish Christmas tradition with Jonas, Johan and Marina. I was a little hesitant at first but then I agreed. See there is this friendly lady that swima at the pool and she knows that we have a significant amount of Sweds on the team and so she introduced herself to them and invited them to this traditional ceremony during Christmas. This ceremony is a tribute to Saint Lucia and there is a huge story behind it but its a big thing that happens every year in Sweden. I felt a little weird because I was amoung the very few who didn't speak swedish and I was probably the only one there who had no idea what this thing was about. First when we got there we just sat down in a room with a bunch of table and visited and was introduced as the UNLV swimmers (Me as the Canadian who wasn't swedish). We then went to the church where the sermon began. They handed out the words of the songs to be sung (luckily half were in english) and they proceeded. They begin with Lucia walking down the aisle and we sang. Once the procession was down the aisle (taernor (girls) and star boys), Jackie (the lady) got up and told the story of St. Lucia to us in english. After that we sang some more and then we were dismissed and sent to go socialize and eat. Okay this is the coolest part. Now we got to eat a bunch swedish treats and some non-swedish. There was gingerbread, gloegg (sweet, warm, red wine with christmas herb served with raisens and almonds), soft gingerbread, risgrynsgroet (porridge), polkagris (candycanes). It was so cute because the women made it for me. Jackie is such a character and she is SO nice. She was so happy that they came to this. Then Santa came to give out presents and the boys got really excited about that. They went and got a present and took a picture. We then got to go to the tree and get a smaellkaramel (bangcarmel) its a contained present and you open it on Christmas Eve...cause thats when they celebrate Christmas so I apparently can't open it till then...we'll see. But here are some pictures to show you...I am slowly lerning the swedish heritage. Check out the pics!