HOME & GARDEN
A wonderful Christmas Time Christmas 2021 is all about feeling nostalgic; bringing back the traditions of yester year and remembering a time of good old fashioned traditions. We go back to basics to find out the true meanings of some of our favourite decorations.
The ritual of putting up your tree and hanging decorations throughout the home is forever instilled in our festive childhood memories. From handmade projects to heirlooms passed through the generations, a home filled with joy around Christmas starts with magic, excitement and sparkle. I always watched my mother lay out the decorations in the run up to Christmas Day, meticulously placing every bauble on the tree and the wreath on the front door. She knew what she was doing, and she was very good at it. It was as if she was one of Father Christmas’s best elves sent straight from the North Pole. Even now, as I try to recreate the beauty of Christmas through my own style....it is not the same! The way we decorate our homes over the festive period has been passed down through hundreds, if not thousands of years. And not all Christmas traditions were passed down through religious reasons; some are to celebrate the winter solstice or anicent folklore. Here we delve deeper into the background of some of our favourite traditions to find the true meaning of Christmas. The Christmas Stocking There are many tales of how the Christmas stocking came to pass. One legend goes that Saint Nicholas tried to help a poor family in secret. Knowing full well that the family would not willingly accept charitable donations, he threw a bag of gold coins through an open window under the cover of darkness and it landed in a stocking that was drying next to the fireplace. This led to the custom of putting out a sock, stocking or in some countries, a shoe at Christmas time for St Nicholas to drop a gift in on Christmas Eve. Pulling a cracker The first version of the cracter, invented by Tom Smith, had love messages wrapped around sweets which were more like fortune cookies. As the cracker progressed into a much larger mechanism, the sweet was dropped and a ‘bang’ incorporated with little trinkets and gifts added. Now a true staple of Christmas Dinner. n 8 | Warwickshire Now | Issue 59 | December 2021/January 2022
Christmas Tree All around Western Europe, from the Scandinavian countries to the CONTINUED OVER THE PAGE
