Description of Clip Art: These stockings are stuffed with gifts and candy canes. They come in red, green and blue. Visitors may use the stocking rhyme for the inside of cards and the stocking clip art to decorate cards with.
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Description of Clip Art: little girl twirling in a tutu, text "Christmas Magic", stars in skirt
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One of the many paper mache' Santas that I've made for my own tree.
A Santa head crafted from a pine cone and fur.
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Below, I have loaded this page with clip art of dear old St. Nick for your holiday web pages.
Santa with a trumpet and holly. text reads, "Merry Christmas"
Text reads "Here Comes Santa Claus" in black. Red illustration of Santa.
Vintage scrap of Santa braving a snow storm with a bag of toys.
A retro Santa Claus reads a Christmas story before bed.
Above is a Victorian Santa Claus watching a sleeping child. He brings her a doll.
Santa listens carefully as a fairy brings him good news.
Dear old Santa wishes you "Best Christmas Wishes"
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Have a question about the illustration?
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This restored clip art of Christmas angels are by Kathy Grimm. Read the Terms of Use before downloading and printing for personal use only.
This Victorian angel carries a bouquet of fir branches.
Her head is crowned with a glowing star.
A Victorian angel with large pink wings
tosses mistletoe from the clouds.
The Victorian cherubim carries a laurel of forget-me-nots.
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The following Victorian scrap, Christmas bell clip art was restored by Kathy Grimm in 2012. Please read Terms of Use before downloading the graphics; they are free for personal use only.
Red Christmas bell, church in the
snow and holly with berries.
Victorian white bell with holly/berries
and "A Merry Christmas" script
Brass Bell, holly and berries, pink pom poms
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Star shaped votive candles for Christmas against a black background
A traditional red taper with festive trims
Star shaped votive candles for Christmas
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Have a question about the illustration?
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folks.
Have a question about the illustration?
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Wicker snowman comes in a white, green and blue background. He holds a sign the says, "Noel" and wears a red scarf decorated with white snowflakes. His hat is decorated with pine needles, a pine cone and red berries.
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Description of the Silhouettes: shepherds, families, pets, jesters. women and grandparents all dance and pose in these playful silhouettes
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The Twelve Days of Christmas, and the associated evenings of those twelve days (Twelve-tide), are the festive days beginning the evening of Christmas Day (December 25) through the morning of Epiphany (January 6). The associated evenings of the twelve days begin on the evening before the specified day. Thus, the first night of Christmas is December 25–26, and Twelfth Night is January 5–6. This period is also known as Christmastide.
Over the centuries, differing churches and sects of Christianity have changed the actual traditions, time frame, and their interpretations. St. Stephen's Day, for example, is December 26 in the Western Church and December 27 in the Eastern Church. Boxing Day the first weekday after Christmas observed as a legal holiday in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and was traditionally marked by the giving of Christmas boxes to service workers (such as postal workers and trades people) in the United Kingdom; December 28 is Childermas or the Feast of the Innocents. Currently, the 12 days and nights are celebrated in widely varying ways around the world. For example, some give gifts only on Christmas night, some only on Twelfth Night, and some each of the 12 nights.
During the 16th Century, Catholics created the carol to be sung publicly without censure. The original symbolic meanings of the riddle where in fact a formula for their catechism. The government at that time would have prohibited such forms of speech in their communities and this is why the religious symbols were kept secret. The truth of this has been widely understood for quite some time among Lutherans, who are Protestant, and have known about the "hidden" catechism for many many years prior to the internet's existence. As Protestants, we have no alternative agenda to proliferate this knowledge, we simply speak to what we have had evidence of for many years. Below is the religious symbolic content for the 12 Days of Christmas, none of it is urban myth and none of it is scandalous.
Incidentally, all Lutherans learn an almost identical catechism to the following. And, many other Protestant denominations also would find nothing amiss in the reciting of the following catechism. Indeed, they teach it already in Sunday School to their own children. They just remove the heading "Catholic Catechism" from the statement of faith. But, all of these little lessons are common to most every single Christian church because they are found in the Bible.
Partridge in a Pear Tree – Jesus, as described in Luke 13:34
Two Turtle Doves – The two testaments of the Bible, old and new
Three French Hens – The Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) (Hens are reference to the scriptures in Isaiah referring to God gathering Israel as a mother hen gathers her chicks to her breast.)
Four Calling Birds – The Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (Both birds and fish are very ancient symbols of "The Church in Christ" The birds represented are usually sparrows though.)
Five Golden Rings – The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible (These are the oldest books written in the times of Moses)
Six Geese a-Laying – The six days of the Creation
Seven Swans a-Swimming – The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, cousel, knowlege, piety, fear of the Lord (respect), and courage)
Eight Maids a-Milking - The eight beatitudes (Sermon on the Mount, book of Matthew)
Nine Ladies Dancing – The nine fruits of the Holy Spirit (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control)
Ten Lord a-Leaping – The Ten Commandments (Moses brought them down from the mountain top, broke 'em, and went back to retrieve another set, "sigh")
Eleven Pipers Piping – The eleven faithful apostles (Minus Judas. Piping pipers also had a significant meaning in Western European folk tales. They were symbolic of "leading" children down a path away from their parent's corruptions.)
Twelve Drummers Drumming - The doctrines in the Apostles' Creed
Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping on your nose, Yuletide carols being sung by a choir, And folks dressed up like Eskimos.
Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe, Help to make the season bright. Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow, Will find it hard to sleep tonight.
They know that Santa's on his way; He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh. And every mother's child is going to spy, To see if reindeer really know how to fly.
And so I'm offering this simple phrase, To kids from one to ninety-two, Although its been said many times, many ways, A very Merry Christmas to you
"Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire" sung by Nat King Cole
Scherenberg Psalter, c.1260. Mary and Child, David and Solomon above, Isaiah and Jeremiah below. Note the doves in the medallions.
The Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the ancestors of Christ, shown in a tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David; the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy. It originates in a passage in the Biblical Book of Isaiah which describes metaphorically the descent of the Messiah, and is accepted by Christians as referring to Jesus. The subject is often seen in Christian art, particularly in that of the Medieval period. The earliest example dates from the 11th century.
The passage in Isaiah, 11:1 is: "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. In the Latin Vulgate
Bible used in the Middle Ages this was: "et egredietur virga de radice
Iesse et flos de radice eius ascendet " or ".. a rod out of the root of
Jesse, and a flower shall rise up...". Flos, pl floris is Latin for flower. Virga is a "green twig", "rod" or "broom", as well as a convenient near-pun with Virgo or Virgin, which undoubtedly influenced the development of the image. Thus Jesus is the Virga Jesse or "shoot of Jesse".
In the New Testament the lineage of Jesus is traced by two of the Gospel writers, Matthew and Luke. Luke describes the "generations of Christ" in Chapter 3 of Luke's Gospel, beginning with Jesus himself and tracing backwards through his "earthly father" Joseph all the way to Adam.
Matthew's Gospel opens with the words: "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham". With this beginning Matthew makes clear Jesus' whole lineage: He is of God's chosen people, by his descent from Abraham, and he is the "shoot of Jesse" by his descent from Jesse's son, King David. The figures shown are drawn from the genealogies in the Gospels, usually showing only a selection.
Links to those sites that discuss Jesse Trees and also include free materials for parents and Sunday School teachers:
Pictorial representations of the Jesse Tree show a symbolic tree or vine with spreading branches to represent the genealogy in accordance with Isaiah's prophecy. The 12th century monk Hervaeus expressed the medieval understanding of the image, based on the Vulgate text: "The patriarch Jesse belonged to the royal family, that is why the root of Jesse signifies the lineage of kings. As to the rod, it symbolizes Mary as the flower symbolizes Jesus Christ." In the medieval period, when heredity was all-important, much greater emphasis than today was placed on the actual royal descent of Jesus, especially by royalty and the nobility, including those who had joined the clergy. Between them, these groups were responsible for much of the patronage of the arts.
Basilique Saint-Quentin, France
During the Medieval era the symbol of the tree as an expression of lineage was adopted by the nobility and has passed into common usage initially in the form of the Family Tree and later as a mode of expressing any line of descent. The form is widely used as a table in such disciplines as biology. It is also used to show lines of responsibility in personnel structures such as government departments.
The Jesse Tree has been depicted in almost every medium of Christian art. In particular, it is the subject of many stained glass windows and illuminated manuscripts. It is also found in wall paintings, architectural carvings, funerary monuments, floor tiles and embroidery.
The first representations of the passage in Isaiah, from about 1,000 in the West, showed a "shoot" in the form of a straight stem or a flowering branch held in the hand by (most often) the Virgin, Jesus when held by Mary, or Isaiah or ancestor figures. The shoot as an attribute acted as a reminder of the prophecy, In the Byzantine world, the Tree figures only as a normal-looking tree in the background of some Nativity scenes, also a reminder to the viewer. Indeed, the Tree was always far more common in Northern Europe, where it may have originated, than Italy.
There exist also other forms of representation of the Genealogy of Jesus which do not employ the Jesse Tree, the most famous being that painted in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo.
The most typical form which the Jesse Tree takes is to show the figure of Jesse, often larger than all the rest, reclining or sleeping (perhaps by analogy to Adam when his rib was taken) at the foot of the pictorial space. From his side or his navel springs the trunk of a tree or vine which ascends, branching to either side. On the branches, usually surrounded by formally scrolling tendrils of foliage, are figures representing the ancestors of Christ. The trunk generally ascends vertically to Mary and then Christ at the top.
Relief of Tree of Jesse, Cathedral St. Peter, Worms, Germany
The number of figures depicted varies greatly, depending on the amount of room available for the design. As a maximum, if the longer ancestry from Luke is used, there are 43 generations between Jesse and Jesus. The identity of the figures also varies, and may not be specified, but Solomon and David are usually included, and often all shown wear crowns. Most Jesse Trees include Mary immediately beneath the figure of Jesus (or, in the Gothic period, show a Virgin and Child), emphasizing that she was the means by which the shoot of Jesse was born. Saint Joseph is rarely shown, although unlike Mary he is a link in the Gospel genealogies. It was believed in the Middle Ages that the House of David could only marry within itself, and that she was independently descended from Jesse. Sometimes Jesus and other figures are shown in the cups of flowers, as the fruit or blossom of the Tree.
The Jesse Tree was the only prophecy in the Old Testament to be so literally and frequently illustrated, and so came also to stand for the Prophets, and their foretelling of Christ, in general. Both the St-Denis and Chartres windows include columns of prophets, as do many depictions. Often they carry banderoles with a quotation from their writings, and they may point to Christ, as the foretold Messiah. The inclusion of kings and prophets was also an assertion of the inclusion and relevance in the biblical canon of books that some groups had rejected in the past.
While particularly popular in the Medieval era, there were also many depictions of the Jesse Tree in Gothic Revival art of the 19th century. The 20th century has also produced a number of fine examples.
These little bear ornaments originally hung
on my mother- in-laws' Christmas tree.
Above is the Papa bear.
Momma Bear...
... and baby bear.
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