Santa Lucia

While Chuck tries to untangle himself from gift wrap, ribbon, and tape (especially tape), I've been busy in the kitchen preparing our Santa Lucia dinner for tonight. We know we're all off on the date and all that, but we don't care. This is our one nod to our Swedish heritage during Christmas, and we celebrate on whatever December date that is convenient. It happens to be Dec. 23 this year. We will enjoy Swedish meatballs, ham, cheeses, limpa bread, hardtack, smoked salmon (we always have seafood, but what form it takes changes from year to year), potatoes, some veggies, and dessert-to-be-determined. Lingonberries were scratched from the menu because the only store that sells them is too far away. Anyone care to join us?

The girls used to always dress up in white dresses with red sashes, with candle wreaths on their heads while they served our dinner (photo from 1991). But Greta is feeling a bit "too old" to do it now. Ahhh, the end of an era.

I just finished baking the hardtack, also called flatbread. Here's a picture of some of it. The recipe makes tons. You can also see the rolling pin in the photo, which I use only when I bake hardtack. It was handed down through the family, originally HAND CARVED by a greatgrand in Sweden. All those identical little bumps were hand carved, in a circle, by a very, very patient man.