Santa Lucia - EXPLAINED!

Santa Lucia

St. Lucy's Feast Day also known as the Festival of Lights

St. Lucia is the patron saint of the city of Syracuse (Sicily), where she was born.

On December 13th we honor this saint with celebrations in Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, Finland, Malta, Italy, Bosnia, Iceland, Bavaria, Croatia and some parts of the United States. Each country celebrates this day in different ways. Additionally, each individual household may celebrate by honoring varied traditions within their own family. Because there are so many different ways to celebrate this day, I will simply talk about how we (an Italian household) celebrate Santa Lucia.

Tradition dictates that Santa Lucia brings gifts to good children and coal to bad ones which is not unlike the celebration of St. Nicholas (Santa Claus). Children are asked to leave food for Lucia and for the flying donkey that helps her carry gifts. In return, Santa Lucia will leave candy canes for the children if they are good and nothing for those that were bad.

Santa Lucia is popular with the children in this household because she brings them candy! I might also add that she is popular with me as well because I have been able to... ummm, wellllllll let's just say I am quick on my feet when it comes to stealing food and leave it at that!

On the night of December 12th the children leave their shoes at the front door and when Santa Lucia and her donkey visit, she leaves delicious candy canes behind. (cue the Labradoodle - hee hee!)

Then, on the morning of December 13th, when the children awaken, they will find candy canes in their shoes (if I haven't gotten to them first, that is!). The day is also celebrated with a traditional meal including cuccia (or cooked wheat) that is specially prepared and served at dinner time. The tradition of serving wheat on St. Lucy's Day is to recognize her miraculous efforts of averting famine.

All this talk about food is making me hungry. I wonder what has been left on the counter for me to investigate . . .

Looking for gifts for St. Lucy's Day (Santa Lucia)? Check out THESE fine designers!

Another New Year!

January 2008

What better way to ring in the New Year than to wear a hat and make lots of noise!

Christmas and a New Year!

To start things off on a sad note, this was the family's first Christmas without Dino and it was difficult for them. To cheer them up I acted like a big goof on Christmas morning - especially when they gave me a gift to unwrap!

I had a wonderful time with my new family. I am so glad they adopted me!

Mealtime In My New Home

It's The Most Difficult Time Of The Day

Things seem to be going pretty smooth so far. I think mealtime is the most difficult. I haven't figured out the pecking order yet and I want to be the boss because let's face it, I was out on the street for awhile and I had to scrounge up my own food so I feel like I should be at the top of the food pyramid in this house.

Apparently the humans don't agree. At feeding time they separate the 3 of us who wear the fur in the family. The 2 boys are allowed to eat in the same room (the kitchen) but I am relegated to the laundry room. I heard the Mom say it was because I was jumping all over and barking when it was mealtime. That's what we did where I come from! The Mom got pretty mad because a couple of times I knocked my food bowl right out of her hand before we even got to the laundry room. That was a disaster because then my food was all over the floor and those boys came running and started to eat the kibbles that were MINE! That did NOT work well for me.

Apparently I'm going to have to rethink this dinnertime ritual of jumping up on the Mom when she is about to feed me. Maybe I can muster up enough composure to control myself but I dunno~ it's sooooo very tempting all the time. One thing I did notice though is that there is another person here, he's ~ uhhh ~ NOT THE MOM ~ but I don't know what to call him, ~ anyway, he likes to feed those of us who wear the fur in the family at the humans' dinner table. This makes the Mom mad but I will tell you this, NOT THE MOM really gets my attention for his behavior! I'll have to make a note of this and be certain to be nearby every time he eats!

Life In My New Home

So here I am, the "new" gal in town. My Mom and this other guy, I'll call him "NOT the Mom", seem to really like me and so do the kids but I'm not so sure about the 2 boys in the fur coats. My first couple of weeks here have been a struggle with these guys. We haven't communicated very well and to be quite honest, I'm not sure they speak the same language as me. I guess I can tolerate the little guy but I can't stand how he always has to be around the Mom. I thought that was MY job! He is constantly at her feet or needs to be held by her ~ even when she's at the kitchen table he wants her to hold him ~ how ridiculous is that?!? He has to be around the humans ALL THE TIME ~ he even watches TV with them. He is one spoiled Wire Fox Terrier:


The other guy, the Shiba Inu, well he thinks he's a cat ~ pretty weird looking cat, I might add! He doesn't like me too much but I am slowly winning him over. He wants to play all the time ~ how immature is that for a 5 year old! So, I play with him and even let him win most of the time but the truth is, I can squash his little body with one swipe of my big paws. Don't worry, I haven't done that ~ at least not yet ~ but I certainly CAN do it if I wanted to!

Stay tuned... I heard they want to take me to dog training. HA! I'm a year old folks... don't you know you can't teach an old dog new tricks?!?

Arriving In My New Home

Upon arriving at my new home I was really nervous. First, there were all these new people and then I find out I'm not the only royalty in their home. (By "royalty" I mean those of us who wear the fur in the family!) They had 2 others living with them! They were both male. The oldest one was called Dino, a 13 year old Wire Fox Terrier. He was very small and pretty cranky, if I do say so myself. My new Mom didn't seem to think Dino would like me very much. The funny thing was, he couldn't see very well so I somehow was able to avoid any confrontation with him. He was the easy one to win over! He even has to watch the television close-up, SEE:

For the record, he did NOT have the winning Lottery numbers that evening.

The younger guy is named Speedy (I know... I thought the same thing... SPEEDY ~ What a name!) He was the hard one to win over! He didn't like me AT ALL. My new Mom kept me close to her side and made sure he didn't bother me. At first, even though he was much smaller than me (he's a Shiba Inu, about 25 pounds) I was pretty afraid of him. He can get a nasty look on his face sometimes ~ if you don't believe me, see for yourself:

It was starting to get dark and I was still quite nervous. I followed my new Mom everywhere she went. The only thing was, they made me go outside to do my "business"... can you imagine that?!? Anyway, I took this opportunity to sniff every inch of the yard ~ TWICE ~ I didn't care how late it was or how dark it was. I made the ultimate find... I could crawl under the deck in the backyard and look for rabbits. How great was this place?

They called me... and called me... but they had no idea where I went. Then, they heard me crawling around under the deck. Uh oh... am I in trouble now? Well fine, I just won't come out! They weren't too happy about the fact that I remained stubborn even though they offered me gold treats. They tried everything. Finally, one of the teenagers crawled in after me. What a sight that was! She looked like she had been crawling in the trenches in an army war zone ~ these people are such fun!

It wasn't until I crawled out and saw the looks on my new family's faces that I realized I also got pretty dirty. Oh no... the dreaded bath ~ I can see it coming ~ Ugh! Bath time is NOT fun time:

Life Lessons

You know how some people say "Life begins at 40?" Well for me, life began on March 28, 2006, the day I rescued my family.

Let's back up a couple of weeks though. . .
Before coming to live here I was on the street, a vagabond unable to be captured. One day, this nice lady took me in her home. It just so happens that she was a Foster Mom for dogs! I stayed with my foster Mom and her family for 2 weeks. They called me "Buttercup" but I knew that wasn't my name. One only needs to look into my soulful eyes to know that I am a BELLA.