The Feast of Santa Lucia heralds my favorite time of year. Announcing all the joys of the Christmas holidays, December 13 has a distinctive meaning for me. The Festival of Light is my feast day. It celebrates the tradition of my ancestral heritage, a story that began in Italy a century ago.
…Life in Seminaria di San Luigi should have been unbearable for the short, almond-eyed young man. For the first time in his seventeen years he was away from home. Orazio was born in Serino, a quiet unsophisticated village 42 kilometers from Naples. The twenty other young noviates hailed from big cities throughout Italy: Rome, Milan and Venice. Fast-talking classmates constantly ridiculed his provincial manner. Most humiliating of all, his father was a sheep farmer and soon the diminutive student was nick-named il Pecorino, the Little Lamb.
Following a rudimentary farmtown education, his university studies were challenging. Yet Orazio thrived as a seminarian and preferred this life to his former days in the Guarino family’s bustling household. Third in the line-up of thirteen rowdy brothers and one spoiled sister, he found the monastic world peaceful, serene and intellectually stimulating.
He was sure that he had made the right decision: Orazio would be the first priest of la famiglia Guarino.
The arrival of a telegram, the first Orazio had ever seen, thwarted his life dream. “Suo padre e morto.” Extreme grief for loss of his dear Papa was only compounded by a harsh reality. The new Italian government had repossessed his ancestors’ valuable timberland, leaving sparse farmland too small to sustain sheep or logging. Orazio left the seminary, gave up his studies and returned to work on what remained of the family estate.
Without Papa Guarino additional income was needed to support the fourteen fatherless children. Orazio went to the village butcher and begged to be his apprentice. The old man, amused that il Pecorino would soon be slaughtering il porco, welcomed the bright energetic youth. In a short time the novice took over the expansive province of Avellino. As he traveled from farm to farm, each family boarded the young handsome butcher until their prize pig was transformed into cold cuts delizioso.
The day Orazio entered the tidy farmhouse of the lovely brunette Lucia, his thoughts of the priesthood faded forever.
…Fast-forward one hundred years from Serino, Italy to my mother’s kitchen in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. It is the week before the new millennium. Mama and I are cooking Italian sausage in preparation for a genuine Christmas Italiano.
“Mama, Where do you get good Italian sausage?”
“That’sa easy, Lucia. You maka it fresca, from the pig.”
I do remember as a child, grinding the fresh pork, squeezing it into the casings and twisting the links. It was a lot of work, turning that crank. We churned out wonderful sausage and unforgettable family bonding.
“Back in Serino, when I was a bambina, my grandfather was the butcher. Alla the neighbors, they had a farm.
“…and on the farm they had a pig, E-I-E-I-O!”
“Zita, Lucia! The piggies they were all born in the spring. In the winter, Nonno he goes walking to every farm in Avellino.”
“He butcher the pig, cuta the meat and maka alla the cold cuts. He maka the proscuitto, sobrasata, capicola, salami and the salsiccia fresca.”
“No wonder Christmas was a time of celebration in Italy!”
“Natale was the time for sharing il porco. Alla the famigli share the meats with alla the neighbors. In Italia, food lika amore, is to give and get back. Thatsa La Vita Bella!”
The narratives of my mother’s life, reminiscent of her native Italy, always intrigued me. Her first fourteen years were spent growing up in the mountainous villa of Serino in the province of Avellino, Italy. Mama’s love of her distant paese was recanted in the saccharine stories of her youth. I never tired of these tales—although I heard each one a hundred times before.
“Mama, tell me the best part of the story, how I got my name.”
“One day, Nonno visits the farm of una bella ragazza who stola his heart. Thatsa why I am Lucia and you are Lucia and many more to come. Cupid’s arrow isa more sharp than even the butcher’s knife!”
…Back in Italy, the brisk December morning brought excitement to the crowded town square. Hopeful young women anxiously waited the crowning of Santa Lucia di Serino. Many had come from throughout the paese for the competition that began the season of Natale. Every nubile candidate carried blessed palms in her right hand and biscotti cookies in her left. As tradition dictated, the eldest daughter represented each family.
Dressed in the willowy white gown with scarlet sash, Lucia longed to be the chosen one.
The festa parade began with a marching band brightly vested in flowing robes and pointed hats. Folk songs filled the air competing with animated voices of excited children. Villagers exchanged news of the day and tall tales of past times. The fragrance of almonds wafted from torrone candy stacked like miniature leaning towers of Pisa. Napolitanos love a feast and this was the favorite of the province.
Strains of the melodic tune Santa Lucia brought the crowd to silence. It announced the crowning of the girl elected to portray the beloved saint. It was fitting that Lucia bella was selected from the all the others to wear the coveted crown of lighted candles of her own namesake.
Standing in the crowd was the potential-priest-turned butcher, Orazio. When the beauty with the honey brown hair passed him by, the steady drumbeat matched the throbbing of Pecorino’s heart. He recalled that he had first seen her in that country villa a year ago. Now the piercing eyes of the stunning ragazza seemed brighter, more intense. He secretly vowed, on that historic day, to make Lucia his bride.
…A century later, standing in Mema’s kitchen, with the aromas of four loving generations enveloping me, I am again reminded of why I adore the Feast of Santa Lucia. The marriage di amore of Orazio and Lucia changed the course of history, and began mine.
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Living my personal mission statement, “Each One, Teach One,” my greatest blessing is being the mother of two, grandmother of three and a lifelong educator. A graduate of UF and UNF, I am the former principal of St. Paul’s Catholic School in Jacksonville Beach, Florida and executive director of Tree Hill Nature Center in Jacksonville.
Since retirement my avocation is now my vocation – freelance writing. The technical writing of past professional life evolved into more creative genres of poetry, short fiction and memoir. My goal is to invoke the entire spectrum of human emotions in my reader: longing to laughter, pain to promise, despair to discernment.
