Our Santa Lucia Crown

December 13th is the Feast of St. Lucy. In Sweden this feast day is called Luciadagen. The tradition is, that the oldest girl in the family wears a white dress with a crimson sash and stockings, as well as a wreath crown with white lighted candles. Then, at dawn she would wake the rest of the family with hot steaming coffee and Lussekatter, or some other sweet bread.

I must admit, we have never celebrated this feast in the past... So, this is going to be the year we start this tradition. I thought it would be fun for the girls to watch me make Santa Lucia Crowns! Now, I have been wanting to make one like Jennifer's or Matilda's... But, that is going to be next years goal. This year, due to lack of talent necessity, I need to keep it simple.

I found these templates for candles and leaves. I printed the candles out onto cardstock and cut them out. I then used the leaf pattern to cut leaves from scrapes of colored scrapbooking paper. I also cut out yellow flames to add to the candles, and red circles to be used as berries. I made a ring out of cardstock, and stapled the ends, then with glue dots applied the leaves, berries and candles. Overall it was very simple and made completely from things we had on hand... A definate plus.

Here you can see the finished version, and Twinkle Toes trying it on... She is really looking forward to wearing it Thursday!

For breakfast Thursday, there are a number of recipes available online for Lussekatter. Another easy idea is to place birthday candles on the top of glazed donuts... My kids would love that! My plan is to, hopefully, make the recipe for "Santa Lucia Crown" found in Cooking with the Saints. It looks delicious!

You can read more about St. Lucy and find other ideas here and here.

Or scroll through all of our St. Lucy posts in the archives!