Feast of St Barbara

Yesterday was the Feast of St Barbara. We celebrated this Feast by making a ‘Tower’ a tradition we introduced a couple of years ago told to me by my dear friend Anna. Anna has many traditions her family keeps, many of their traditions come from a little Italian village where she spent some of her childhood years. This idea came originally from that Italian village, Zolli in the Avellino Province of Italy.

We built a chocolate tower with red lollies in the center. The tower represents the tower St Barbara was locked in, the red lollies the blood of her martyrdom. The children close their eyes/are blindfolded and take turns hitting the tower like a pinata.

To make the tower we broke a large bar of chocolate into 4 strips and then we melted cooking chocolate to help mold and glue the ‘strips’ into a tower. Then we filled the center with red lollies.

The children enjoy listening to the story of St Barbara, and enthusiastically enjoy the eating part:)

And if you’re wondering who was the successful winner with the pinata stick. It was a tricky one this year as I had hardened the chocolate in the fridge after making our masterpiece. It was being most resistant and it wasn’t until the last person, Prince Charming gave it an almighty thwack that the tower exploded into many pieces that flew around the room. Mmmm, I’m sure it didn’t need to be struck with such force. Anyhow PC was successful and the chocolate was eaten:)