St. Lucia Day Festivities!

Ahead of our Luciafest celebration this year, Cultural Leader Hannah Lindgren and former Lucia (2022) Scout Strand promoted the event on Indy Now! A morning show program on Fox59. It was a joy to share about St. Lucia Day and invite people to join us at the event!

Our lodge was also invited by the Children's Museum of Indianapolis to participate in their Celebrations event and talk about St. Lucia Day with hundreds of school kids and visitors to the museum! Ingrid Wiebke, Hannah Lindgren, Glenn Carlstrand and Carin Young volunteered and spoke with hundreds of youngsters over three days.

On Saturday, December 6, almost 200 lodge members, friends and guests gathered to celebrate St. Lucia Day at the Basile Theater at the Historic Athenaeum! This was our second year at this venue, and we are so grateful to be in such a beautiful location. This was also our lodge's 45th consecutive year celebrating Luciafest together. Brenda Myers, Jim Lindgren and Hannah Lindgren put together a history display in the lobby to share the story of our lodge and of Lucia in Sweden.

This year we also switched from all savory foods to full-out Swedish FIKA! We were so lucky to have Front Row Catering provide us with Swedish traditional sweets and snacks, including rice pudding, Lussekatter, cardamom buns, almond cake, pepparkakor, kanelbullar, poppyseed cookies with jam, and knäckebröd with cheese. Not to mention, homemade glögg! We were also grateful for the coffee provided by Coat Check.

Cultural Leader and Lucia Committee Chair Hannah Lindgren and Lodge Chairperson Glenn Carlstrand made remarks and Marissa Childs recited the Lucia Story before our program began. Beautiful music and singing was provided by Skandilocity and Sarah Toplez. Soloists Amanda Hopson and Isabelle Calkins sang gorgeous solos!

The Sveaskolan kids worked hard all year long to learn their music for the program, and they did an excellent job! New this year, eight of our kids recited the advent poem in both Swedish and English, which was adorable. This year's Lucia Adelaine Collar did beautifully!

We closed out the evening with the Lucia pendant presentation to this year's Lucia, the raffle drawing, dancing, story time and Jultomte's visit!

Thank you to everyone who helped plan the event, contributed by donating, volunteered, or participated in the program! We with you all a God Jul and a safe, happy and festive holiday season!