Friday, December 13, 2013

Advent Trees and Christmas Folliage: 7 Quick Takes (Volume VIII)

I am suddenly seized by the last-minute desire to participate in 7 Quick Takes Friday even though I am sitting amidst toast crumbs at the breakfast table with a nursing baby in my lap.

I realize that Christmas trees during Advent might seem a little pre-seasonal, but it's appropriate to plan ahead, right? Besides, I won't be posting on Christmas.

First, though, an Advent tree:

1.
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Two years ago, when I was teaching in a Lutheran school, my students begged to decorate for Christmas. I reminded them that our headmaster wanted us to remain seasonally and liturgically appropriate and to celebrate Advent. This was their solution:





2.
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My paternal great-grandparents immigrated from Norway. We still have a picture of my great-grandmother at Christmas in Norway, c. 1905. Look at their tree!







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When I was young, we decorated our tree with little red apples (visible below). They kind of tie-in with the trees in the Garden of Eden, and more importantly, they weren't breakable. As my sisters and I grew up, I remained emotionally attached to the red apples. My sisters did not. Some years I managed to get apples onto the tree and some years I did not. Below is our tree (I am on the right). 





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Did you know that nineteenth-century city-dwellers had to go to market to buy Christmas trees? It makes sense, of course, but I had never really thought about it. Here is some primary source evidence in nineteenth-century art:


(Russian artist Genrich Manizer)

(German artist David Jacob Jacobson)


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Nineteenth-century French carolers carried trees with them, apparently.


(A detail from Gustave Brion's Christmas Singers, 1856)


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Judging by the pictures I've seen, most early Christmas trees seem to have been small and located on tables.
 

 (First Christmas Tree in Ried, 1848, by Franz Ignaz Pollinger)


7.
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Apparently, Christmas trees did not "take-off" among non-German families in the United States until a picture of Queen Victoria's family tree was popularized in magazines. There's an interesting article about it HERE.




Enjoy the rest of this Advent season! If you are looking for non-Christmas, truly Advent music, you can listen to it online for free at Lutheran Public Radio. It's awesome.



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3 comments:

  1. Oh, wow, that picture of your great-grandmother is wonderful. How cool that you have that!

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  2. Is your great-grandmother the one in the middle?

    I have thought about Advent Management a good deal in the last few years as I am bringing the whole concept of Advent into a non-liturgical family. There is only so much you can hold back, without losing a good deal in postponing all seasonal joys until the 25th, because at that time very few will still be celebrating with you. How 'about giving the tree a name-change on Christmas Day? Perhaps certain Adventish ornaments could be removed and others added, the way some liturgically-oriented households have a nativity scene with Jesus missing until the 25th, and the magi arriving even later, as they journey from place to place around the room.

    One problem I have run up against in trying to at least postpone the Christmas tree until closer to the feast, is that the supplies at the most convenient tree-sellers' run low. I did know a family who would always go for theirs on Christmas Eve just so they might get a free one somewhere. They weren't liturgical, so they didn't have to squeeze its decorating in between church services.

    Thank you for the music link!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gretchen, yes, I think so. You're right that it's difficult to celebrate Christmas after the 25th if you want your neighbors to join in. :-) In my family, we celebrated Christmas during Advent the way that most people do, but my husband grew up with a firmer hold in liturgical tradition. In his family, they decorate advent garlands with ornaments in early or mid-December, but don't decorate the tree until Christmas Eve.

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