Christmas Eve

As you probably know, we start celebrating on Christmas Eve here in Germany and it's also the day of gift giving.
I have written about that and about the Christ Child as the gift bringer in my part of the world before.
Things may have changed in the last 50 years 😉, but in my time it was tradition in my and my friends' families to put up the tree on the morning of Christmas Eve.
Seems the Christ Child did too!

Christ Child is a Dawn doll with an outfit beaded by me.
The Christmas trees are Steiff.

Dawn was a registered trademark of the Topper Company. I am not affiliated with Topper in any way.
Steiff is a registered trademark. I am not affiliated with Steiff in any way.

O Lego tree, o Lego tree ...

... your candles kept falling ohoff, o Lego tree, o Lego tree, they really drove me nuhuuts."
Actually, this project went rather quickly. Although some of the steps had to repeated for the different branch levels, it wasn't boring at all, maybe because I did it in several rather short sessions.
If you wonder, I let den Dekan join me in two of them, but the first time I forgot to take the camera to the table and he left me when I went to get it, and the second time I had the camera, but the batteries decided to die just that moment when I was about to take a picture of him checking the bags.
As there wasn't a box for him to sit in, he got bored rather quickly and left the room after making my desk chair crash by trying a new wide jump record from its top.

Here's the tree now. I really like it.
At one point, I thought I had make a big mistake and took the single levels apart from one another, but in the end I found that it needed an open ring instead of a plate in one spot (which absolutely made sense if you're not a numpty like me 🤪).
You can make one big tree or a smaller and a really small one, therefore there are pieces left over and I had grabbed the wrong one.
And of course I kept losing the candles until I finally got smart enough to leave them off until the end.
If you make the two trees, one of them has the candles and the other has all the baubles, red and other colors. On the big one, the baubles are all red per the instructions. Not on mine. I put them where I found space. Much better.

When exactly the tradition of the Christmas tree in private homes began isn't known. It was not unusual for different cultures to bring evergreen into the houses in winter.
There are several records for fir trees being put up without them being called Christmas trees explicitly before, but in 1527 the term turns up in an existing document.
Whatever the exact year is, the Christmas tree had been around in German speaking regions for a long time.

Since the mid-18th century, it was mentioned more and more, and in the 19th century, the tradition had already spread to Austria and then went to New England, England, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Russia.
At first, trees were decorated with sweets, apples and nuts some of which were painted in silver and gold. The children were then allowed to plunder the edible decorations off the tree.
The legend goes that a glassblower in Lauscha, a town which is still known for its glass art and Christmas ornaments - which now come in all kinds of shapes from traditional to very modern - couldn't afford apples and nuts for his tree and made them from glass instead. True or not, the first written record of glass ornaments is in an order book from 1848.

You may also have heard the idea to hang a Christmas tree from the ceiling - upside down to save space - for example to discourage pets from getting into it.
That's actually not a new idea, but I don't even want to get into the theories who did it first or maybe not or why.
It's not something I'm going to be doing as I have high ceilings and have no interest at all at having someone put a hook up there for me, but mostly I just don't like the look. I want my tree on the ground where der Dekan and Gundel can wreak havoc easily. It's fun for the whole family, and after I made sure they can't get caught in the string of lights, I'm fine with picking up gnomes and "pineapple slices" all the time even if I moan a lot about it!

This picture is from last year,
I'm behind with my tree decorating.

I am not affiliated with Lego in any way, except playing with it every, now and then.

The mysterious decorator

I wonder who decorated this tree in the winter forest? We might find out if we followed the footprints in the snow, but sometimes a mystery is quite nice, isn't it?

Yes, I know it's early, but I got my metallic threads and just had to try them out on something!

O Christmas tree - The eighteenth door

Can't do Christmas without a Christmas tree, can we?
In 2016, I made this pair of mismatched earrings with a very shiny tree in seed beads.

But can we put a Christmas tree on the tree? Of course we can, if only because I had enough beads for one, but not two of them. So obviously it had to be an ornament for the calendar.

This time I used matte dark green Delicas which are more realistic than silver lined beads - and happened to be part of a surprise bead order, just perfect - but in order to create the shine of the season, I turned semiprecious stones into baubles and added gold seed beads.
My tree comes with its very own pot. It's from dark blue hex beads with seed bead and Delica embellishments.

Would this qualify as a happy little tree, what do you think?

The Christmas pod - The thirteenth door

Sometimes I really wonder if it has become worse with age or if I was simply born being geometry challenged. It sure isn't a time at school I am thinking of fondly.
As I had made two part pod earrings before, however, I figured I would be able to make a pod from three components as well.
There are beautiful pod patterns out there, but I wanted to make my own. Nothing too big or complicated of course, after all I had to make three components.

So I played around a bit and drafted a little Christmas tree in  a pot, with lights on the branches, a golden star on top, a garland all around, and baubles.
The plan was to put the same pattern on every component, but change the colors for the garland and baubles - which would be nice for using up some stash.

After the second component I got bored. It was probably not a good idea trying to push it through, I messed the third one up royally.
First, I ran out of the blue mix I had used for the other two, but I just couldn't be bothered to put in a bead order just for  a few blue beads, and no one would notice the change in the background, right? After all, this was just a small pod for myself.
Second, the spirit bead - a wrong bead used on purpose because only the gods are perfect - in the garland wasn't so bad. Only it was not really a spirit bead, I just had missed it, it had been the middle of the night and I had been already bored and slightly annoyed. One wrong bead wouldn't show, would it (especially not in a sea of different blue beads).
Then came the real whopper. Although I thought I had checked very thoroughly, I had made the wrong halves and only noticed then when getting ready to zip up the last piece. As loud laughter of a madwoman is usually frowned upon by the neighborhood at 1.30 a.m., I took a deep breath and put everything away.

The next day I gave it another try. Success! Now I just needed to zip it up and ... what was that? A one bead bauble in the first component I had made?? Why hadn't I noticed that before? I was so ready to chuck this whole thing, but I had come too far already. So I broke out the two wrong beads very carefully and added the right ones.
So far, so good. Just zip up the last piece and ... why do all the pods I see always look so nice and smooth and full and mine looked, well, not wrinkly exactly, but just not as nice? Did I have to stuff it? Was my tension wrong?
I really had it by now. This was no fun anymore at all. What would it look like if I just squished it? It was strangely satisfying to do so, probably because I let all my frustration out, and to make it stay that way I even sewed the parts together in a few spots. It's no pod, but it actually looks quite cute.

This had not been the plan, however.
Incredible but true, after all this hassle, I decided to make a second pod and stuff it. An easy pattern, not taking chances this time.
Another little Christmas tree based on the last one, only symmetrical and no different colors for each component, either. No snow and just a different background color for each side.
I was so sure it would go wrong again otherwise, and then I would have to drown myself in the Fils, our little local river.

I know that you are now burning to know if I managed without mistakes the second time round and I'm happy to say ... no. You hadn't really expected me to say yes, had you? ;-)
I had to break out a few wrong beads again, but at least I know how to do that instead of having to rip it all up!

All sides.

And this will show you the difference of the backgrounds a bit better.

I doubt there will be another pod soon, but who knows? After all I said the same things about the puffy stars.

And so it begins ...

Having known him for almost 2 1/2 years now, I must be a special kind of fool to put up my Christmas tree, him of course being der Dekan.
Last year I didn't, but I missed it so much, and maybe he would be nice and not destroy it? Well, at the moment der Dekan is leading with at least 2 points (Christmas tree 0 and it's hard to imagine it'll score eventually) by pulling down two of my pineapple slice ornaments after ten seconds.
This year, the tree didn't go in its usual spot on the Stairs to Nowhere because I didn't like the idea of it falling down a few stairs, so now it's where I can see it better.
Since checking last, I saw it shivering - in fear, no doubt - and I even saw it trying to run away. Have I ever mentioned that der Dekan loves to pull things (the reason not to put the ball chain on the tree this year)? After that, I heard some sounds, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were some more ornaments on the floor now.
Of course, I was smart enough not to put any glass baubles on the tree. It's mostly the pineapple slices which I stuck on the branches as that is not as tempting (haha!) as having them dangle, some of my first wire crochet baubles, and some wood and metal. I didn't even put my Santa Jack Skellington on the top this year, let's see how things go and maybe I'll change my mind.
And in case you wonder, Gundel checked out the tree as well. She had one look, turned around and left again.

Sorry for the bad pictures, but it was already too dark to take a picture without flash and with flash is not that great, either. You get the idea, I'm sure.

I also couldn't put any of my new ornaments on the tree.
Yes, I made new ornaments because there will be an advent calendar again this year.
This time it will not be about traditions, however, but it will be crafty. I hope you will be following it - my success AND my fails!

Antique and vintage Christmas ornaments - The twenty-first door

There is no end to what you can hang or put on a Christmas tree.
My oldest ornaments are two tiny baubles that I gave to my grandmother for Christmas as a child, more than 50 years ago. She had a small artificial tree with colored lights on her TV (the good old time of huge TV sets ;-)). One of the baubles has lost its hanger a long time ago, but because of the cats they don't go on my tree, anyway.
I also have some Snoopy Christmas baubles left from the set we got for the first Christmas in our own flat. That was more than 30 years ago, so they are vintage as well.

These baubles may be of emotional value, but they are just simple baubles.
What did people put on their trees in the past? Let's look at a few things, and no, the Christmas pickle won't be one of them.

In the old days, Christmas trees were often decorated with edible things, like apples, sugar treats, walnuts painted in gold, but over time other ornaments were added.

Have you ever heard of Dresden cardboard ornaments?
Since the 70s of the 19th century these embossed cardboard ornaments were made in the Dresden region by cottage workers in a variety of shapes, from stars or cars to exotic animals.
The cardboard was dampened, then embossed, covered with metal foil and sometimes painted with gelatine. There were one-sided pieces, but also pieces put together from two embossed parts, some of them shaped to be even three-dimensional.
While you can still get Dresden cardboard today, antique ornaments are very much sought after and not easy to find.

Steamer from Dresdner Pappe around 1880 (Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, CC-BY SA 3.0)

Another material that was used for different ornaments was cotton. The little cotton mushrooms are still popular today and you can even make them yourself, but of course there were also snowmen, Santas, fruit, animals, and more, from pressed or spun cotton, more or less elaborate.

I have also mentioned Leonic wires in a previous post. Leonic wires are thin copper wires, gold or silver plated and twisted into a spiral shape. They were used in different ways, for example in decorative ribbons, but also Christmas ornaments. The name "Leonic" possibly comes from the city of Lyon.
The craft of using Leonic wires in Christmas ornaments has been become less and less popular, but hasn't died out completely yet. Here you can find a German video showing a lady from Bavaria making golden stars at home.

Famous are of course the Gablonz ornaments. In the mid-19th century glassmakers in Jablonec began making hollow glass beads. The industry kept developing new ideas and techinques like lining the glass with silver on the inside which makes colors on the outside shine even more. Small hollow glass beads in different shapes were strung with wire and combined with other glass decorations for the most amazing creations.
On Flickr, I found this picture with pieces from an Austrian Christmas exhibition. Just look at that lobster!

Picture by Taurabus on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

I could keep going and going, but it's so easy to get lost in pictures and texts, and still you have to come to an end eventually.
Let me finish this with a video about a lady who has been collecting Christmas ornaments for more than 40 years and shows them in a Christmas museum in Austria (Weihnachtsmuseum Harrachstal). Even if you don't understand German, I think you will enjoy this little glimpse into her collection.






More information:
Dresden at The Ornament
Tinseltown at The Vintage Christmas Company
Antique bohemian beaded Christmas decorations ~ 1870 - 1940. Area of Jablonec nad Nisou / Gablonz at the Gablonz Collection

Christmas quote of the week - The eleventh door

Almost exactly eight years ago, I told you about the history of the Christmas tree.
Nowadays, with the tradition of putting up a Christmas tree having spread far and wide, it's unusual to think about a time when there were no trees. Not everyone was fond of the tree idea, though.

Inspector Brackenreid: Hey, Jackson! What do you think you're doing?
Constable Jackson: I ... I'm measuring the height of the ceiling, Sir. For the tree.
Inspector Brackenreid: The... There will not be a tree in here.
Constable Jackson: Wha... No tree?
Inspector Brackenreid: Bloody Germans and their idiotic traditions. Jackson, get down!
Detective Murdoch: Sir, a tree wouldn't be a terrible idea.
Inspector Brackenreid: This is a place of work, Murdoch, not a bloody herbarium.

Murdoch Mysteries - A Merry Murdoch Christmas, Canada, 2015

Now, you may know that the tradition of the Christmas tree started in Germany (maybe if you read my old post) which the inspector doesn't like much, but as an Englishman and loyal subject of his monarch Edward VII. (this is the year 1903) who was brought up in this tradition by his mother Queen Victoria and her German husband Albert, you would think he'd be a bit more open to it, wouldn't you?
Victoria and Albert even decorated the tree themselves before they let the children in to see it.

Drawing by Joseph Lionel Williams (via Wikicommons)

Actually we find out later that the inspector isn't fond of Christmas itself ... yet.

Decorations - The first door

Are you ready for a new advent calendar this year?
It has been four years that I did the last one, and I'll try to present some customs and stories that I haven't shared yet, some of which I even hadn't heard of myself before, to be exact.
By no means do I claim to be complete in my posts, but as usually, I will provide links, so you can look up more about a topic that is particularly interesting to you. And please, if you find something that is not right, let me know!

Last year I missed sharing pictures of my Christmas tree here which looked different from the years before because I had to take the criminal energy of a certain kitten into account and therefore had no breakable ornaments at all on my tree, only my wire knit "pineapple slices" and the wire crochet baubles.
That kitten has turned into a big ole cat, and I thought about the right spot for the tree for a long time before I decided to give it a break this year. The master loves to pull things and he has not only become very strong, but has also been in extreme hunting mode lately. My usual trick of wrapping two of the branches around the bars of the stairs would probably not be enough.

To get into the Christmas mood and to set the mood for the advent calendar, however, here are this year's decorations from the hallway.

The full view.

The window sill with the Lego ornament and the Discworld advent calendars of which there were unfortunately no new ones in the last two years :-(

The Steiff parade with Santa Claus, the Christmas mice, and the cute teddy ornaments.
Seems my felt polar bear has sneaked his way in there as well!

And of course my advent calendar tree made by Paul from Phoenix Glass waiting for its beautiful lampwork embellishments from the little parcels, well protected by my needle felted/bead embroidered snowman.

I know, I know. You have seen them (almost) all before.
Have you noticed, though, that some of the non-beaded baubles (and the usual mistletoe which is so big this time that I have to cut it up a little first which really is a shame) are missing from the hallway decoration?
Maybe I need those free spots.
Who knows? I might not have shown you all of the decoration yet, so I won't spoil the surprise for some of the upcoming posts ...

Christmas Eve - The twenty-fourth door

You can imagine how excited we always were as children when we got to open the last door on our advent calendar. Next was the trimming of the tree, then we were sent off to my grandmother who was supposed to keep us entertained until we finally got the liberating phone call telling us to come home.

This morning I went outside into the hallway to open the last little parcel of my special advent calendar by Phoenix Glass. You might remember the picture from the first day with just one small bauble on the tree.
It looks a lot different now!

Happy Christmas Eve, my friends.

O Christmas Tree - The third door

Gundel is in her favorite place on the stairs, Ponder has lost consciousness in his cat tower's plushy softness - a good moment to set up my Christmas tree.
Last year I had been searching for my ornaments, I thought I lost my mind. Turns out I did, there were in the same box in the same safe spot they had been during the last few years, but you know how it sometimes is with those safe spots. This year my memory didn't fail me, so here they are.
Yup, almost all of my tree decorations fit into a small box, but then my artificial tree is not exactly big, either. You can see the beaded bauble my friend Caroline made, some of my "pineapple slices", a few Christmas spider legs and my octopus bauble's tentacles peeking out.

As soon as I had the tree out, my second supervisor arrived on the scene. She gave a few branches a short nibble and went around the tree to check if I had bent all the branches the right way. Looks to me as if Supervisor Gundel is fine with what she saw.

The hardest part for me are the lights and the ball chain. Yeah, the baubles will hide the messy look, I think. As you can see my trusted wooden cats are helping to keep the tree in place (plus one of the branches is wrapped around the railing ;-)).

By then Gundel had decided she needed a second look. That chain didn't look very safe. Neither did it to me after she started pawing it! I still kept going. There are my earliest prototypes of wire crochet baubles, my wire knit and few beaded baubles, the beaded goodies from my friend, gifts from the neighbors like wooden stars and more, tiny baubles from my pal, the snowmen I made, the weird little octopus and the "mace" baubles. Last but not least I put my wire knit "flame" on top and of course Christmas Jack to guard everything!

It's a pity that it is such a grey day which makes it hard for me to take a good picture. Maybe I'll post another one if I find the chance and the light is good enough.

Well, and then the first bauble fell. While I had been decorating, there were some mysterious bauble shakes and I kept seeing a little black paw, but only when I was done, there it went - but didn't break!
So if you feel like betting on the cats or the tree, let me know! ;-)

Christmas in Thailand - The twelfth door

I have never been in Thailand myself, but I have a special correspondent there at the moment. Please welcome my friend Dawn from Jewelry Art by Dawn who spent time in Thailand last year including Christmas and does again this year (please click the link to check out her blog for both great jewelry and a travel diary!).

These are the pictures of Christmas trees and decoration Dawn shot last year.
"Approximately 90 percent of the Thai people are Buddhists and don't celebrate Christmas which is a Christian holiday.  However, they like some of the holiday traditions such as decorations, Christmas carols and Santa hats.  I can't help thinking that part of the reason for the holiday cheer is for the benefit of the Westerners who live in or who are vacationing in Thailand."

By now you probably know that I couldn't leave it at that, but had to dig a little more.
Others confirmed what Dawn said. Thai like to celebrate when they get a chance, so why not celebrate Christmas? Why not put up colorful artificial trees? Why not put Santa hats on elephant statues or the miniature spirit houses? Why not be creative and just share the Christmas joy by coming together with the family and have a lovely meal, even if it's not turkey?
Indeed, why not?
I don't think I have said it before, but I am not a religious person myself and still I enjoy the Christmas mood, the carols, the lights and being with my family. I don't know if it's because I grew up that way or if it's just something inside me. Who knows, I might enjoy celebrating Christmas in Thailand, too.

Thank you, Dawn, for sharing your pictures with us!

Please also check out the links below for more pictures and details.


Sources:
http://www.dgreetings.com/christmas/celebrations-around-the-world/in-thailand.html
http://www.thekitchn.com/finding-the-christmas-spirit-in-thailand-christmas-around-the-world-198160
http://www.apllc-connect.com/news/christmas-in-thailand.html

Catsmas tree - The first door

Can you believe it's December already? Are you ready for another Cat's Wire advent calendar?
To be honest, I'm not that ready. Usually I start in time before December and this time I didn't. I have no idea yet what to show you or what stories to tell you, so I will just have to wing it. Maybe one or the other day I will have to grab a video or a picture or refer to a post from former years. I hope you'll come by, anyway.
Let's do this.

We all know the pictures, we know the videos, and possibly we know it from own experience.
Cats assaulting Christmas trees, sitting in or on the tree or, if things went really badly for the tree, beside it why it's taking a little nap. The tree, not the cat. The cat is all smug about it because we know cats are never guilty.

I put up my tree on the weekend. It's the third year now that I've had this little artificial tree without the cats showing any interest in it. Almost no interest, that is. Ponder always has to steal off at least one ornament, play with it for a bit and leave it. It's a good thing that both my wire crochet and my wire knit ornaments recover easily from those attacks.

This time, however, was a little different. For some reason Ponder wanted to say hello to Jack who is like always guarding the tree. I even had a few very blurry pictures of him checking out some of the ornaments and once I thought now he was going to jump.

Instead he found himself stuck. He couldn't go up because of the wall, he couldn't figure out to turn around because he's a big cat, and he seemed to have forgotten that there was still Liese, the lifesize Steiff calf, on the other side from where it had actually come.
After a lot of complaining and refusing help from me he managed to turn around. He jumped down and left with as much dignity as he could muster. No catastrophe for my little tree and Jack yet.
He has been back already, though, this time playing with the big wooden cat lying under the tree.

I had an idea. The tree's "twigs" bend, so I just wrapped two of them around one of the bars on the banister. I'll let you know how that works out in case Ponder decides he wants to have another go!

O Christmas tree - The eighteenth door

Last year I was brave and spontaneously bought myself a little artificial Christmas tree. Although my furry brats are no youngsters anymore, they still know how to take down one or the other thing, especially Ponder in one of his lonely races when he has his five crazy minutes.
It actually went fine. The tree didn't fall and only two ornaments mysteriously left their spots for a short while. The nice thing about my wire knit stars, however, is that you can bend them back. It's a little sad for me that I can't use tinsel, but I guess I can't have everything.

While we are singing "O Christmas tree" ... where does the Christmas tree come from?
Now that is actually a tradition that I knew to be originally German. It was not unusual in different cultures to bring evergreen into the houses, but the first written record of a Christmas tree that still exists is from 1527 although it's possible that there was an earlier one which can't be proven anymore, though.
Since the 1750s the Christmas tree was mentioned more and more often. In the 19th century the custom had spread to Austria, then New England, England, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Russia.
At first trees were decorated with sweets, apples and nuts some of which were painted in silver and gold. The legend goes that a glassmaker in Lauscha, a town which is still known for its glass art and Christmas ornaments, couldn't afford apples and nuts for his tree and made them from glass instead. True or not, the first written record of glass ornaments is in an order book from 1848.

Nowadays many of us can't imagine Christmas without a tree, may it be big or small, real or artificial. After all Linus van Pelt taught us that even the saddest little tree just needs a bit of love ... ;-)
"I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really."