Do you put tinsel on your Christmas tree? Have you ever wondered why? How wonderful to discover this tradition is linked with a Ukrainian folk tale. Cobweb Christmas is one possible retelling of this tale. Ukrainians often include a spider as a decoration on their Christmas tree.
Tante prepares for Christmas. She lives alone with only her pets and farm animals for company but on Christmas eve each year the village children come to see her decorated tree. Each year she works hard to prepare for this event. The house is thoroughly cleaned and special decorations are baked.
"Tante made cookie for the tree. She baked gingerbread boys and girls. She rolled sugar cookies shaped like new moons and cut cinnamon-cookie stars. She rubbed apples until they gleamed like glass to hand from the branches too."
Cleaning up the house means Tante needs to sweep away all the cobwebs. She swishes every spider out the door.
It is the tradition in this village that the children leave their shoes by their doors so Kriss Kringle can tuck a gift inside each shoe. On the evening of this particular Christmas Kriss Kringle meets all the displaced spiders. They explain that they just want to see the beautiful Christmas tree in Tante's house. Kriss Kringle opens the door so there is a small crack for the spiders. They scurry inside the climb all over the tree leaving a trail of their webs. Kriss Kringle returns to close the door and sees all the webs on the tree.
"He knew how hard the old lady worked to make Christmas and how dismayed she'd be when she saw her tree. But he didn't blame the spiders for being curious. Instead, he decided to leave a special gift for Tante too. Gently Kris Kringle touched each week. Beneath his finger, the slender strands gleamed like gold and the dangling threads sparkled like silver."
Huge thanks to my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything for sharing this book with me. Take a look at her post about other Christmas folktales.
Sadly all of these books are now out of print but you might be lucky and find one in a library. I did find a video version of Cobweb Christmas. It does not quite have the same magic as reading the print book but it will give you a good idea about the story and the illustrations by Jane Manning. Here are another two books which explore this theme.
No comments:
Post a Comment