Bringing Home the Christmas Tree - Traveling Tree
According to Lancaster (Pennsylvania) Online, the first documentation of a Christmas tree in the United States is found in a diary account of Matthew Zahm of Lancaster in 1821. An entry in Zahm's diary indicates he cut down an evergreen on December 20, 1821 "on the hill at Kendrick's saw mill" to use as a Christmas tree.
One of our favorite ornaments from Inge-Glas of Germany is Traveling Tree:
Even more fun, this year My Growing Traditions has been creating a board on Pinterest of Christmas Traditions. There, over and over again, we have found and pinned photographs of various renditions of "Bringing the Tree Home," including a photograph of the proverbial vintage red 1941 Ford pickup with a Christmas wreath on the grill and a tree in the back. Scroll down the board and you will find many different versions on a theme that is such an important Christmas tradition for many of us.
We now carry Wendt and Kühn Angel Orchestra Ornaments
This year we have added to our offerings Christmas ornaments from several German workshops. The Wendt and Kühn classic Orchestra Angels from Grunhainichen, Germany, in the Erzgebirge are a favorite.
We first discovered the clip-on Orchestra Angels in the 1970s in a wooden basket sitting on the floor in front of the check-out counter at a Crate and Barrel. There in that basket they lay in a bit of a heap, one atop the other. My first impression was how undignified for such exquisite, classic Angels created in Germany. Each one of them was distinctly a work of art. Yet, this was during the period of the Soviet Union, and they were made, of course, in East Germany. At that time, the workshops of the Erzgebirge were still allowed to create their traditional items, but individual ownership was quashed under the auspices of the equivalent of collectives. Interestingly, we spoke with a customer recently who had also found the Erzgebirge hand-shaved trees (Spanbaum) in a basket on the floor of Crate and Barrel. At least Crate and Barrel kept us supplied. Now we stock both the trees and 15 of the most classic clip-on Angel orchestra instruments:
To see all 15, click here: Wendt and Kuehn Orchestra Clip-On Angels.
They make a special addition to anyone's tree, especially to commemorate a member of your household who enjoys playing a musical instrument.
The German Pickle Ornament - Traditions, Legends, and History
The German Pickle Ornament offers the opportunity for a family to establish a really fun tradition on Christmas morning. As the legend goes: To be hidden on the tree Christmas Eve - the child to first find the pickle ornament on Christmas morning receives a special gift. Inge-Glas of Germany makes three different sizes of the pickle. As the child grows the pickle hung on the tree becomes smaller. We offer a full set of the three sizes in a wood-chip gift box:
And, we offer them individually: - the largest pickle is for the toddler
- the medium-sized pickle for a pre-school child
- the smallest pickle for a child in elementary school, or in fact for the child in all of us.
All come with legend cards.
We offer you the possibility to innovate with this tradition. The following are alternative activities you might want to offer the child who finds the pickle. He or she:
- has good luck throughout the year
- opens the first present Christmas morning
- gives the first present Christmas morning - says Grace or reads a poem at Christmas dinner
- is the Secret Santa for the day (secretly doing something special for family members or friends)
or, create your own.
Christmas historians have had difficulty pinpointing the origins of this tradition. Inge-Glas notes in their book Christmas and Traditions by Klaus and Birgit Mueller-Blech, that "no one knows who, what or why, but it's a Christmas tradition to be enjoyed, even by the shy."
The German Christmas Pickle Tradition provides the best discussion of the issue that we could find. Rita Mace Walston, of About.com's "Germany for Visitors" heard from one individual who provided a story about a Bavarian born in 1842 who fought in the American Civil War. According to family lore, he was captured and sent to prison. He begged a guard for "just one pickle before he died." The guard acquiesced and the pickle - "by the grace of God - gave him the mental and physical strength to live on." Eventually returning to Germany, he, according to this tale, began the tradition of hiding a pickle on the Christmas tree. "The first person who found the pickle on Christmas morning would be blessed with a year of good fortune."
A second explanation connects the creation of the legend to the glass-blowing town of Lauscha in Germany. Among the first glass figural ornaments (glasschmuck) were ones in the shape of fruits and nuts. The pickle could easily have fit into this category. As they note, F.W. Woolworth began importing glass ornaments into the United States from Lauscha around 1880.
We found another source that added a tiny bit of information to the puzzle. The Glass Ornament: Old & New. A Collector's Compendium and Price Guide by Maggie Rogers with Judith Hawkins, 1983, researched when specific glass ornaments arrived on the U.S. ornament market. They report that Pickles from Lauscha-Steinheid, Germany were exported to the United States from Germany from the 1870s to 1939. No ornaments were available during World War II. The pickle was an ornament made in a mould - the glass being mouth-blown into the mould. Their scarcity index was: Rare. The pickle ornaments are said to have come in various shapes: "dills, gherkins, etc."
Wherever the pickle legend originated, they are a fun tradition that everyone in the family can look forward to.
Affordable and Elegant - the Original Inge-Glas Bride's Tree Set
My Growing Traditions has an exceptional offering when it comes to Inge-Glas' traditional Bride's Tree Set:
- the original full set of 12 mouth-blown, hand-painted, German ornaments symbolic of the blessings to be bestowed upon the newly minted couple. Complete with a Heart representing True Love; a House (Protection); Santa (Goodwill); Fruit (Generosity); a Fish (Christ's Blessing); a Teapot (Hospitality); a Rabbit (Hope and Faith); an Angel (God's Wisdom); a Flower Basket (Good Wishes); a Rose (Affection); a Pine Cone (Motherhood); and a Bird (Happiness and Joy).
- in the German cardboard presentation and storage box with the symbol of each ornament printed on the side of the box
- WITH the presentation certificate that comes in the wooden box set,
- and with individual cards tucked in with each ornament stating the symbolism of the specific ornament. We show here, as an example, the two sides of the Santa card:
This set is perfect for so many occasions: bridal showers, weddings, first Christmases, and anniversaries.
At $6.67 per individual German ornament, the price is special.
You won't find anyone else selling this set packaged so artfully. And, we offer replacements for each and every one of these ornaments should they ever be needed in the future.
Vote for your favorite German Christmas Market
About.com German Travel section is taking a vote of people's favorite German Christmas Markets. You can register your votes by visiting their website here.
The cities listed are: Munich, Berlin, Nuremberg, Dresden, Cologne, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Trier, and Dusseldorf.
One can vote for more than one city and tell them about others that you favor in their comment section.
We offer Advent Calendars for the Christmas markets of the cities highlighted above. Good memories.
Brück and Sohn European Advent calendars now available at My Growing Traditions
For years as we lived and travelled in Europe, we found ourselves purchasing these wonderful Advent calendars as a memento of our trips. We didn't really need to purchase much of anything as a souvenir, but were taken with the fact that Brück and Sohn's Advent calendars represented not only a memory, but were also useful, and really quite nice art. Actually, there was an additional reason, the Brück and Sohn printing house is in Meissen, Germany. With our love of pottery/china/porcelain, travel to the Meissen Porcelain factory was imperative. We enjoyed two trips to Meissen and were truly charmed by this small town, with it's village square and the Frauenkirche's Meissen porcelain bells.
There, right in the center of town was the Brück and Sohn printing house, a small business thriving on an exquisite product.
The Brück and Sohn printing house has been in business since 1793 and we are proud to finally be able to offer their Advent calendars at My Growing Traditions. It is a family business now owned and managed by the seventh Brück generation.
We do have favorite Advent calendars, probably because they are of places we experienced. On the whole they celebrate the Christmas Markets of individual cities. Below is their calendar for Meissen, itself.
A particular favorite is not of a specific city in Germany, but rather of the wood-turner from Germany's Erzgebirge region--an important center of Germany's toy making industry. The Erzgebirge, with its town of Seiffen and the surrounding villages, is renown for the production of wooden German Folk Art, especially folk art important to Christmas.
Our offerings this year are of the German cities: Berlin, Dresden, Meissen, Nurnberg, Rothenburg, Salzburg, Seiffen, and Stuttgart. We also have their calendar for the Nauschweinstein Castle (the inspiration for the castle of Disneyland), for the city of Colmar in Alsace, France, and of Vienna, Austria. You can find our Brück and Sohn selection here.
Personalize your Christmas traditions with the perfect ornament from Inge-Glas®
Sports is such an important part of our lives. We work, we learn, and we play. And that play is ever so good for us as individuals. Play includes group and individual athletic activities--super for our bodies and even more super for our minds. Inge-Glas® of Germany (the oldest Christmas Ornament company in the world) offers some very nice mouth-blown, hand-painted, glass "sports" ornaments. What could be more special than to personalize your tree with an ornament that symbolizes the importance of "the sport" that is dearest to you and yours. Celebrate with ornaments beautifully created by Inge-Glas®: baseball, football, basketball, soccer, tennis, golf, skating, and ballet (yes, ballet is most definitely an athletic endeavor). Find them: here
And, if you have a Golf Santa in your house, Inge-Glas® has an ornament just for him:
Fun to play and fun to bring out these delightful ornaments year-after-year.
