Swedes love to celebrate special occasions and go all out to make it a very special time with elaborate decorations. Swedish Christmas crafts are varied and usually have a long history attached to each article. Read our guide for more facts and info
The Christmas celebrations in Sweden and the Christmas crafts will usually incorporate scenes of a pre-Christian holiday called Jul. Then there is St. Lucia’s Day which is celebrated on 13 December. A number of crafts are available which are all based on Swedish Christmas celebrations, and of course to help decorate the house and that all-important tree. Let’s have look at some:
The beautiful St. Lucia Crown
St. Lucia was a virgin Swedish girl who lived in the 4th century and sacrificed herself for her devout faith in Christianity. In honor of her sacrifice, the youngest girl of each family would dress up in a white robe with a red sash to the waist. She wears a crown of candles on her head to celebrate light. She then wanders through town passing out specially made Christmas cookies and crafts to people and children.
Traditionally the crown was made of evergreen berry tree branches and tall white candles. Today there are many other ways to interpret her crown and candles for safety reasons such as using electric candles.
The ever-lovely red and white heart
This woven heart is intrinsically part of the Swedish Christmas craft time and is easy to make and appealing in the home. Mainly made for children, they are woven with red and white paper with two handles attached. Some people use wool felt in place of paper. Once the woven heart is completed, it is filled with all kinds of candies and hung over the foot-and-end of their beds or other strategic areas of the home.
The Dala Horse
It started its humble beginnings in a small log cabin deep in the forests of Sweden. Because the winters were long and cold, many nights were spent next to the fire carving wooden toys for children and other Christmas crafts. It was natural that the horse was a popular animal to carve because it played such a pivotal role in those days.
Seen throughout the year, but especially more so at Christmas time, the Dala Horse is a traditional Swedish symbol. However, today there is a myriad of patterns and designs of Dala Horses that can easily be cut from paper, felt, made from clay or other desired materials such as soft wood. They are usually decorated in bright red, with the harness in white, green, blue and yellow. Today one can find many antique horses in shops around Sweden all promising that theirs came from the Swedish province of Dalarna.
