Ok so I confess, I am a Christmas nut and every year, I have my own little Christmas epiphany of some sort, a lesson I learn over the holiday season.
This year my interest was focused on the song 'The 12 Days of Christmas' which lead to my understanding of the true 'Epiphany' and namely so. And how excited I was to learn that Christmas was not over on December 26th and a fabulously legitimate excuse to continue with the holiday cheer. and I get to leave the tree up for 12 more glorious days : )
But why? why do some or most, take their tree down and throw it out to the curb with the torn gift wrap and boxes on Dec 26th ? and why others like myself were brought up to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve, stringing popcorn and cranberries and then leaving the tree up through the new year??
So in my Christmas quest this year, my research proposed a relentless question:
Why do we as a society ritually do, the Christmas things we do?
Christmas trees, lights, yule log, stockings, red & green, fruitcake, mistletoe, gift-givings... WHY?
This is a question that would be better answered in book form, but a more simple answer is this:
In a nut shell, our today's Christmas holiday season is a celebration of the numerous influences of our world's many different peoples and cultures combined. fyi - a smorgasbord of wonderful and interesting links on the internet to research – hours and hours of fun!
So one custom in particular that got my attention, and becoming my very own little Christmas lesson for this year began when my ritualistic-christmas-elf-self was rummaging through the relics of my Christmas past. I came across a Moravian star pattern that belonged to my grandmother. A native to the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area, my grandmother had once written to the local college to request the star pattern that is prolific in the area in which she lived. I remembered one Christmas and being a child, sitting at her dining room table and assembling one of these stars – a small one, about the size to fit in the palm of your hand. ( I still have it although I didn't run across it this year.)
So here I am, in one of the many holiday sleepless nights, and compelled to assemble a larger version of the one I had made as a child.
26 points total. 18 four-sided points and 8 three-sided ones. The first few folds and points weren't all that great, but with some persistence and I am stubborn, I was able to make the points faster and more precise. After 6 hours of cut, fold, and paste or more accurately cut and tape - yes, I resorted to using scotch tape - ughh - I had assembled a very primary rendition of the Moravian Star. Looking like something an 8 year old had made, it actually turned out to be a good thing the tape, as it caused my problem solving skills to kick in. So here, having this 14 inch, cut and tape star that looked like a kid made it ... I do love the genuineness of child art, however in my mind I was striving for something more mature and elegant. Anyway, so to fix it and with my fixer mentality, I decided to use the Golden brand lite modeling paste I have to cover up the tape, and after adding a touch of etherial blue to give it some depth --- it kinda looks like a cake-frosting blueberry blob of coolness. All that's needed now is some glitter! btw, I could have ordered one online for $24.95 but I wouldn't have had as much fun...
And now to the point of my rambling ... pun intended - star points that is... haha
This star, this Moravian Star that is said to have led historic astronomers to their wonderment. This Christmas star, an Advent Star symbolizes the star that led the Wise Men to the baby Jesus.
'Adoration of the Magi' by Leonardo De Vinci comes to mind.
Uffizi Gallery, Florence http://www.lairweb.org.nz/leonardo/magi.html
Many painters in our history have painted this christian Christmas story and thanks to the internet, we have accessible at our finger tips, a grand resource of artists who paint this similar motif and with much elegance and grace.
One link in particular that earns my respect to be included in this post due to it's professional presentation, quality photographs, and informative narration - this is worth clicking on.
Now that we are well into the new year, and with a Christmas future for 2010 ahead of us, I believe change is a good thing and so I plan to for this year, adopt the idea of decorating the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving so I'm not the lone ranger trying to keep Christmas spirit alive through the 12 Days of Christmas. And more importantly to me, Christmas will stay just a bit longer.
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