Exploring Christmas Craft Books by Folks at Colonial Williamsburg

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      "The Art-Full Tree" is a lovely compilation of ornamental folk art crafts for the decorating of your Christmas tree. For every small handcraft, authors also include a brief history behind the folk art that influenced the design of each ornament. Great care was given to the photography and general presentation of each miniature assignment. The book was obviously organized and written by educators and I would recommend it to both professional educators and homeschooling parents for this reason. Teach your young students "how" folk artists see their world and encourage them to do the same through the completion of 33 simple object lessons. For ages 10 and up.

"Christmas Decorations from Williamsburg's Folk Art Collection: Step-By-Step Illustrated Instructions for Christmas Ornaments That Can Be Made at Home" by Colonial Williamsburg Foundation" is strictly a craft methods manual for children with drawn illustrations in black and white. It is primarily the kind of book that educators use in order to help students visualize how something is put together without over interpreting the way the item "should" look. It does include a few notes at the back of the book describing the reasons for the development of the ornaments.

      Both volumes were compiled by staff at Colonial Williamsburg who decorate their Christmas trees annually with handmade items made from natural materials. These items were and still are inspired by the folk art collections from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum. A museum that is located within the ground of Colonial Williamsburg.

      I find this little workbook helpful in that it enables me to build a substantial collection of methods lessons for young students. However, I can understand why most people purchasing craft books would find it's contents too unsophisticated when compared with craft books published today. The newer volume, "The Art-Full Tree." is by far superior, both in content and visual information. It is not the same material, however, and that is why I chose to purchase both books. The projects are not repeated in either book.

 
More Articles Relating To Christmas in The American Colonies:

• 10 Things You Didn't Know About Christmas
• When Americans Banned Christmas
• Christmas During Colonial America

See the many Christmas trees of Colonial Williamsburg.
 Learn how the decorations are chosen for each tree and the
meanings behind them. For more information on Colonial
Williamsburg's holiday events,
visit www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/holidays.

The Value of a Child's Gift

Use gift giving opportunities to teach young children about
resourcefulness, self-esteem, creativity and sharing.

      If we stop to think about our Christmas giving we realize that a gift means more to the giver than it does to him who receives. If it is given in the proper spirit the donor finds out to the full that is really "more blessed to give than to receive," a fact that is lost sight of in an age of the commercial spirit.

      With children there is a great educative value in their present giving if it is encouraged to be really their own giving. If the mother, however, simply prepares some little remembrance, and says "Mary, this is your Christmas present to Aunt Ellen," the gift has no meaning, but it becomes actually harmful for the reason it presents the idea to the child that the gift without the giver is really a gift. And the child has put no thought or self sacrifice into the giving of that present.
      On the other hand, if the child be given pocket money which she may consider her very own, or, better still, if she is  enabled to earn pocket money and is then encouraged to set aside a portion of her very own money for present making the idea of true giving is acquired. The sacrifice, the fore thought, the love necessary to make a gift a real gift are all there.
      The home-made gifts of children have many valuable lessons to teach the young givers. Many lessons in sewing, raffia, bead-work or painting may be given under the guise of making a gift. In one family, where the elder sister had never made gifts, and really never learned to sew well until she was eighteen years of age, the younger sister, a girl of ten, inspired by the example of a small friend, wished to make birthday gifts for her family. One she asked her mother to teach her how to crochet; another time to scallop, and before she was twelve years old she had become as proficient a little seamstress as one would want to see.
      Thus practical lessons are learned, while the child is inspired with the idea that "Not what we give, but what we share; the gift without the giver is bare." The Public Ledger

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"Peace, Good Will Towards Men"

"Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one for another. Love each other as brethren, be sympathetic, be courteous" 1 Peter 3:8 

The church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend.
To guide, sustain and cherish
Is with her to the end.

      The best Christmas sermon the world has ever heard was the first, It was short and simple: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men."

      And the child whose birth those words heralded came among men to preach that simple gospel.

      Theologians have, in many instances, with strange, perverse blindness obscured and darkened the appealing beauty and simplicity of that divine message.

      Jesus went up and down the world holding out open arms of peace in benediction upon humanity, saying in His tender compassion, "Let us love one another."

      And because His words were so simple, so understandable, the world has clung to Him through ages of fear and doubt and disputation.

      More and more the Christ spirit triumphs among men, and it triumphs because it is the spirit of perfect love.

      It takes no scholar to grasp that spirit. Every human heart has felt some measure of the love that makes human brotherhood; there is none who cannot understand what "peace, good will toward men" means.

      Only as the spirit of love works its way among men, teaching them new kindness, to mercy, to justice, can Christmas really be celebrated in the world.

      Whosoever has hated his human brother, whosoever, high or low, has wrought against his fellow,  whosoever has withheld sympathy and service from a neighbor--that man, be he ever so pious and prayerful, has never entered into the spirit of Christmas.

      And wherever men love one another, and help one another, and bear each other's burdens, and dedicate life and hope and aspiration to the good of their fellow men, eager to achieve a world in which justice and truth and charity prevail--there indeed is the spirit of Christmas manifest. For there they have learned the new commandment, the eleventh and greatest of them all: "Love one another."

Visit Jason Castro Online.

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What the Wax Angel Saw

"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool." Isaiah 1:18 

"What the Wax Angel Saw: A Christmas Sermonette"

      There was once a little wax angel with golden hair and a blue silk sash, who was taken gently from her bed of cotton in the attic every year for many, many years and poised on the green spire of the great fir tree in the library. Her outstretched arms seemed always to be scattering blessings on the happy circle in the glow of the Christmas candles.

      She had looked down on the first Christmas of the wide-eyed first born; she had smiled her waxen smile at the boisterous joy of ten, the sentiments of sixteen and the worldliness of forty. Indeed, her blue glass eyes had beheld the seven stages of Yuletide rejoicing.

      Now, one day it was noticed that the beautiful blue sash of the little wax angel was faded and grimy, that her pink cheeks were pale, her nose quite flattened and her left foot gone.

      "We'll have to use something else for the tree this year," said Mother. "The little wax angel is all worn out."

      And the next day her flattened nose was buried in the rubbage heap.

      Nobody would have believed it, but the wax angel was glad her tree-top days were over. Her arms were very tired scattering blessings that were reckoned by dollars and cents; she had often wished to close her eyes on the pretenses and petty calculations of Christmas giving; she had grown pale because of her long vigil over the mockery of the Christmas spirit.

      She had seen greediness planted in young hearts by the thoughtless generosity of their doting elders. She had seen quick eyes search for hidden prize marks, and, when found, she had beheld their owner's look of chagrin or satisfaction in reflecting upon the exchange of baubles that had been made. She had heard wives and daughters and sons accept complacently enthusiastic thanks for lavish gifts--thanks which the wax angel knew were due only to the Father over there with the weary eyes and the limp purse.

      She knew, too, that the frenzied purchasing, at the last minute, of that piece of real lace for the Rich Aunt has cost not only more than could be afforded, but it had cost also all the Christmas joy--meager enough--of the salesgirl who sold it. It's fussy, irritable selection had been the last straw at the end of many tired days. After the last sale the girl at the lace counter just crumpled up and lay on her bed all of that Christmas day and other days besides.

      You see, it is given to little wax angels to see many things, hidden or unheeded by the best of us.

      Suppose you resurrect the one that may have topped the Christmas tree of your youth--or perhaps only of your fancy. Let her unblinking eyes peer into your secret soul, and note if she finds there the real Christmas spirit, or the mockery thereof, that has paled her cheek and dimmed her blue glass eyes. Or perhaps it may have been a silvery star that glistened on your tree-top. Look if it has not been tarnished by your growing indifference to the good-will and kindness and other things for which is stands.

      With a shining star, and all that it symbolizes, or an all-seeing little wax angel as your mentor, you will need no other Christmas sermon.

Uploaded by Capital Music Group. Home of Mandisa.

• Angels: God's Invisible Army from GracetoYou
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"Christians, Awake; Salute the Happy Morn!"

     "The author of "Christians, Awake; Salute the Happy Morn! was John Byrom. Manchester's famous man of letters, who was born at Kersal in 1691. 

      Byrom had several children, but, like many another father, there was a favorite. This child was a little girl named Dolly. A few days previous to Christmas Mr. Byrom, after having a romp with the favorite, Dolly, promised to write here something nice for Christmas morning. On the morning of the great day, when she sat down to breakfast, she found on her plate an envelope, addressed to her in her father's handwriting. It was the first thing she opened, and, to her great delight, it proved to be a Christmas carol addressed to her, and to her alone." from How We Got Our Christmas Hymns, 1913

Christians, awake, salute the happy morn
Whereon the Savior of the world was born
Rise to adore the mystery of love
Which hosts of angels chanted from above
With them the joyful tidings first begun
Of God incarnate and the Virgin's Son

Then to the watchful shepherds it was told
Who heard the angelic herald's voice: "Behold,
I bring good tidings of a Savior's birth
To you and all the nations upon earth
This day hath God fulfilled His promised word;
This day is born a Savior, Christ the Lord."

He spake, and straightaway the celestial choir
In hymns of joy, unknown before, conspire
The praises of redeeming love they sang
And heaven's whole orb with alleluias rang
God's highest glory was their anthem still
Peace upon earth and unto men goodwill

To Bethlehem straight the shepherds ran
To see the wonder God had wrought for man
And found, with Joseph and the blessed Maid
Her Son, the Savior, in a manger laid
Amazed, the wondrous story they proclaim
The earliest heralds of the Savior's name

Let us, like these good shepherds, them employ
Our grateful voices to proclaim the joy
Trace we the Babe, who hath retrieved our loss
From His poor manger to His bitter cross
Treading His steps, assisted by His grace
Till man's first heavenly state again takes place

Then may we hope, the angelic thrones among
To sing, redeemed, a glad triumphal song
He that was born upon this joyful day
Around us all His glory shall display
Saved by His love, incessant we shall sing
Of angels and of angel-men the King

"As With Gladness Men of Old"

      "Another very popular Christmas hymn is that entitled "As With Gladness Men of Old." It is remarkable that this cheerful hymn was written at a time of Great Depression. (The same melody is used in the Christian hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth.") The author, William Chatterton Dix, who died in 1900, had been seriously ill for a long time, and he was feeling ill for a long time, and he was feeling disconsolate and miserable.
      One evening, after he had been some weeks in bed, he felt a great deal better, and while in this improved state he conceived the idea of writing a Christmas hymn, and as a result of this we get "As With Gladness Men of Old."" from How We Got Our Christmas Hymns, 1913

"As with Gladness Men of Old"
by William C. Dix, 1837-1898
As with gladness men of old
Did the guiding star behold;
As with joy they hailed its light,
Leading onward, beaming bright,
So, most gracious Lord, may we
Evermore be led by Thee!

As with joyful steps they sped,
Savior, to Thy lowly bed,
There to bend the knee before
Thee whom heaven and earth adore,
So may we with willing feet
Ever seek Thy mercy-seat!

As they offered gifts most rare
At Thy cradle, rude and bare,
So may we with holy joy,
Pure and free from sin's alloy,
All our costliest treasures bring,
Christ, to Thee, our heavenly King!

Holy Jesus, every day
Keep us in the narrow way;
And when earthly things are past.
Bring our ransomed souls at last
Where they need no star to guide,
Where no clouds Thy glory hide.

In the heavenly country bright
Need they no created light;
Thou its Light, its Joy, its Crown,
Thou its Sun which goes not down.
There forever may we sing
Alleluias to our King!

"Christmas at Long Pond"

       My children loved the simplicity of this story with all of it's detailed hand drawings. Lindsay Barrett George illustrates her own husband and son, William and Will Jr., as they track through the northeast Pennsylvania woods to find their Christmas tree one evening. She depicts the deer, owl and woodpecker that both husband and son describe during their night of discovery. This is not a book that promotes the materialism or hyper fantasy normally associated with Christmas elves in fairyland; it reminds me more of a journal entry from a private family album of an illustrator. If readers are building a small collection of Christmas books, this is an excellent story to add because of the unadorned simple rendition of a winter walk in the woods.

• Read Aloud of Christmas a Long Pond - read by Debbie Webster