Happy Feast of St. Lucy, friends!
Who knows the tune to Santa Lucia – The title of this will give me an earworm for a week. Why do I do this to myself?? Sheesh.
Anyway, Happy Santa Lucia day, friends. This time of year there are many festivals of light happening in different cultures and faith communities. Diwali and Hanukkah were early this year, but it’s so lovely to me that it’s the basis of so many beautiful traditions.
The feast of St. Lucy is celebrated as a way to bring light into a dark time of year. The true festival involves girls with candle-lit wreaths in their hair (yay for the advent of battery powered candles!), but many places have light displays at this time of year. I’m pretty pleased that I got a string of lights on my porch that aren’t solar. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love my solar lights – Christmas lights for 8 weeks, and patio lights for the other 10 months of the year. And there’s always a few families in every neighbourhood who staplegun strings of lights to everything that stands still for too long.

I have plans this year to go to the several locations of the Cambridge Winter Illumination. And ‘ve put the Winter Festival of lights in Niagara Falls onto the Christmas agenda. They’ve expanded the lights offerings and have different “walks” you can take. There’s Waterloo park and Bingemans and the Lights on Stratford festival of lights. Lights are everywhere. Even the displays on peoples’ homes – humble and extravagant, are a joy to me as I’m walking around the neighbourhood with Louie.

So, friends, I’ve got a gift for us all from the unparallelled Leonard Cohen – There’s a crack, a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.

This Advent (and especially on Santa Lucia day) may we all find bright refuge in the darkness of this time of year. This Advent, may I recognize the balance (or imbalance, perhaps) of light and dark within my life and strive to correct them where I find them. And may I strive to be the bright spot for my friends and family.