Well! Are you ready for all the zesty jolliness to come in the next couple of weeks? Are you still out there browsing for gifts for neighbors, friends, the dog and the mailman? Think it’s getting a little out of hand? I know, it’s the season of love and giving, so I am here to help. How about a book? Check in the bookstores for a little title Cobweb Christmas. It’s authored by Shirley Climo and beautifully illustrated by Jane Manning. It’s ever so cozy. This is a folktale that has been rolling around the world for nearly 200 years, and has other versions or interpretations, but this one takes place in Germany. You are gonna love it!
The setting is on a very small farm on the outskirts of a forest in Bavaria. The protagonist is a little old woman, “so little, she had to stand on a stool to climb into bed and so old she couldn’t count the Christmas’s she’d seen.” She was called “Tante” which means “Auntie” in German, and the children of the nearby village loved her.
She lived in a tiny cottage with a barn next to it. In the house she kept a canary, a cat and a dog, and in the barn, she kept a donkey, a goat, a rooster and a hen. She wasn’t tidy, except for once a year at Christmastime. Then she would sweep all the spiders and their webs out the door. She would scrub the floor and shine the kettle. This she called “Clean for Christmas.” Next she “Fetched for Christmas” by taking the donkey into the forest to find a perfect tree. Next, she “Made Christmas” by baking gingerbread cookies and shining up apples to decorate her tree, and then she invited the children to her cottage to “Share Christmas.” After they ate, and visited, it was time to go, and Tante sat down in her little chair, and said that it was time to “Wait for Christmas,” and doses off to sleep. She had heard about wonderful things happening on Christmas Eve, and had always hoped to experience a bit of Christmas magic, and wouldn’t you know! Outside, those pesky spiders she has swept out, want to come in! When Kris Kringle comes by, they appeal to him. He takes pity on them, and opens the door of the cottage, just a little, so that they can scamper in, and then he leaves to deliver gifts. Oh, the tree looks so beautiful, and the spiders climb all over it, but….. they leave a trail of sticky webs behind them. When Kris Kringle returns to close the door, the tree doesn’t look so good, so the “ultimate tree trimmer,” touches the webs, and they turn into sparkling threads. Voila! TINSEL! Yup! This is the beginning of tinsel, and when Tante wakes up, she is thrilled with the beautiful transformation of her tree. So see! A book delightfully mingled with information and joyfully intermingled with charm and coziness.
My good friend Joy, who is so talented in sewing, can even sew spiders, and she made me a little sparkly spider to hang on my tree. I always showed this to the children at school, along with a boa of tinsel around my neck. (Itchy.) But I had to teach them that the word tinsel comes from a Latin word meaning “spark” or “flash.” I know. You don’t see a lot of tinsel on trees anymore, but I love it! I use it everywhere else I can. You should see my living room display. Boom! I think it’s super-duper. Anyway…hope you can find this book, and thanks for stopping by the blog. Here’s hoping that we all can get it done!
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