Include Cotton Batting and Powdered Mica in Your Christmas Decor!

Novel Ways of Trimming Interiors For The Holiday, 1899 American Press Association

      A Christmas without snow is not always a pleasant season. With our variable climate and the passing away of the good old fashioned winter of our grandfathers the "beautiful" can no longer be relied upon as an accessory to Christmastide celebrations.

      A New York artist who has the happy faculty of thinking out such things for himself has adopted a plan in his own house which has always a congenial Christmas within doors, no matter what the weather may be without.

      This plan for converting a home into a grotto of boreal attractiveness is as follows: When it is decided in which room the Christmas tree is to be erected, a white sheet should be spread over the carpet, covering the entire floor of the room. The picture molding should then be draped with bunches of cotton batting and sprinkled with powdered mica to represent snow. About the sashee of the windows also should be bunched masses of this glistening cotton wool.

      The Christmas tree itself should stand in a snow bank, and its boughs should be laden with flecks of the "beautiful" spread about as generously as though it were standing in a Maine forest in midwinter.

      The effect of such unique and at the same time inexpensive decoration is marvelous. It brightens and lights and cheers a room in a most wonderful manner. If there are a number of pictures in the room, the frames of these can also be done in white cotton wool and touches added wherever such would in crease the wintery illusion.

      This sort of decoration should be most acceptable in the south, where Christmas often comes without snow. It must be remembered, however, that this sort of decoration should not be left up after Christmas day. The white cotton very soon becomes dusty and draggled, and when once in this condition the charm is lost. The accompanying illustration will give a good idea of the general effect of a room so decorated.

      It is also fit and proper that the dining room should be well decorated on Christmas day. Ropes of evergreen, which can either be made at home with very little trouble or purchased from the dealers, should be suspended from the chandelier in the center of the room and caught up at its four different corners. The frames of the pictures should also be decorated with greens, and if there happens to be any old Dutch plates hanging on the walls a very pretty effect can be obtained by surrounding them with a holly wreath. These wreaths should be so made that the green will be on the outside of the circle and the berries inside next to the plates.

      Another unique idea is to have a number of well made holly wreaths in which to set the plates on the table during the Christmas dinner. Somewhere about the room, of course, should be the indispensable spray of mistletoe. If it is put on the chandelier over the table, the best part of the Christmas celebration is likely to be missed, as one can scarcely expect a young lady to climb up on a table, no matter how much she --well, we need not say the rest, but it stands to reason that the portiere or the arch over the door is the best place for the white berried parasite.

      Holly wreaths should also be hung in the different windows. In doing this a very fine wire should be used, tying the wreath to the window fastener so that it will hang exactly in the middle of the lower casement.     

Novel ways of decorating with cotton and bling today. Watch Annabelle's Cotton Candy Christmas Tree. The tree is white and flocked and filled to the brim with sweet long lasting treats!

More Decorating With Cotton:  

• From Snowy White Chairs to a Pimped Out Staircase: How to Decorate Like a Celeb This Christmas
• Ultimate Christmas Room Inspiration!
• How to flock a Christmas tree
• Cotton Batting Christmas Ornaments
• Craft an Old World Cotton Batting Santa

How To Make A German Feather Tree

An antique feather tree with wooden stand.

      A feather Christmas tree is a type of artificial Christmas tree that is one of the first artificial trees ever manufactured by cottage industry in Western Europe. They originated in Germany in the late 19th century and became semi-popular in the United States during the early 20th century.

      In the 1880s or 1890s there grew several environmental concerns involving the deforestation associated with the harvest of Christmas trees in Germany and so the handcrafting of feather trees grew into a popular alternative. The branches were made from sturdy wire and could hold many ornaments. The pine needles were made from goose feathers, that could also be dyed any color under the sun, thereby making the trees desirable as decorative items among more adventurous consumers.

       Although white, pink, and pale blue trees could be found among city dwellers in the later years of production, feather trees were initially made of green-dyed goose feathers which were attached to wire branches. The feathers were split and then secured with wire to form the branches. These wire branches were then wrapped around a central dowel which acted as the trunk. The branches were often widely spaced to keep the real candles clamped on the branches from starting a fire.

      The trees were stored separately from the stands. These stands were either made from turned wooden parts or metal cast music boxes. The fanciest music box stands would also rotate the tree as a little Christmas tune played. 

      Germans also built tiny elaborate villages to set beneath their feather trees. These were and still are called "putz" in Germany. The term was derived from the German verb putzen, which means "to clean" or "to decorate." The Nativity or the Journey of The Holy Family are the most common themes represented beneath German Christmas trees. Germans collect and add new figures to their putz every year and some older collections include many contemporary figures and farm animals that would not realistically be found in a traditional Nativity scene.

How to make a holiday feather tree in the German tradition.

      The enthusiasm for Christmas feather trees was brought to the United States by German immigrants in places such as Pennsylvania and Texas. Benefits touted for feather trees included the elimination of a trip to the tree lot and the lack of shed needles. Today, feather Christmas trees are valued as collectible antiques although there are small companies that still produce and sell them in the United States. 

Find Feather Trees:

• The Christmas Haus
• Tinsel and Feather Trees
• The Vermont Country Store
• My Old Historic House
• Feather Tree Kits

Include Cherry Hut Jellies in That Christmas Stocking!

      Something very sweet and special that my family includes both at the Christmas breakfast table and stuffed into the adult's stockings is Cherry Hut jelly or jam. Our family has vacationed in Northern Michigan for many summers and we never miss multiple visits to The Cherry Hut for cherry pie a la mode. I then usually sneak to the counter to purchase a few Christmas treats while the family is still lingering over their coffee. They have an online shop here.

Make your own jellies and jams for Christmas stockings:

• How to Make Jam, step-by-step
• Canning 101 and Strawberry 
• Kauffmans Homemade Amish Jams, Jellies, Salsa and Pickles
• I love the Amish Grocery in Jamesport, Missouri and often visit there to stock up on homemade jellies and jams for Christmas stockings.
• 100+ Homemade Jam, Jelly & Marmalade Recipes

Parlor Game: Jolly Cobweb Party

I actually hosted several parties for my children when they were young and played this game. It was a real crowd-pleaser.

      "A friend of Polly Evans did something last Christmas that was fine. She gave a Cobweb Party.

      This was really no new idea; cobweb parties were quite the fashion a good many years ago. For the boys and girls of to-day, however, it is a rather novel idea.

      She assembled all her guests in the large drawing room. Here each one was given the end of a string and told to follow the string to the other end, where he would find his gift. These gifts--oh! were they not hidden? In nooks of the attic, in corners of the cellar--here, there everywhere!

      The strings crossed and recrossed each other, and led through nearly every room and hallway in the house.

      You can imagine how often and how unexpectedly the various searchers came face to face and struggled to separate their intertwined strings. 

      The strings were of various colors, so as to be the more easily distinguished for each other. 

      Altogether, the Cobweb Party was a charming success. If not too late, why not try it yourselves to-day? " St. Paul Globe, December 25, 1904

Birds and Animals Share Christmas

      Christmas is not merely a festival celebrated by and for man alone. Among the folk lore of other countries are several quaint stories in which animals and birds give evidence of their adoration. A well-known Bosnian legend offers a version of world adoration --they claim that on the holy day "the sun in the east bowed down, the stars stood still; the mountains and forests shook and touched the earth with their summits, and the green pine tree bent; the grass was beflowered with the opening of blossoms; incense sweet as myrrh pervaded upland and forest; birds sang on the mountain tops and all gave thanks to the great God."

      In Bosnia on Christmas day a sheaf of rye is put into birds' nests and bird houses for the birds' Christmas. A stranger, stranded in a Michigan town was once startled to see a sheaf of rye in a bird box. He knew immediately that one of his kind lived there and was keeping Christmas in the old way.

      An old Indian (Native American) legend tells us that on Christmas night all the deer in the forest kneel in adoration before the Great Spirit. Woe to him, however, who tries to spy upon them. He is punished with perpetual stiffening of the knees.

      Many people of the old world claim that on Christmas night animals are gifted with speech, but none must trespass or eavesdrop.

More Related Content:

• Beautiful Slide Show of Old Serbian Orthodox Christmas 
• Iryna Bilay: In straw weaving each component means something
• Lejlas Story Operation Christmas Child, Bosnian girl, shoe box gift
• Birds in winter by Mrs. A. A. Whetstone