Crotchet purses, bon-bons, preserved fruit, and alum baskets*
help to make a beautiful and dazzling effect when the tree is lit up.
There is nothing that so brightens a Christmas tree as gilt paper
chains. Cut gilt paper in strips about four inches long and half an inch
wide, glue the ends together, slip the next strip in the ring thus formed
CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTATION. 135
and glue the end together, and so on until your chain is four or five
feet long. Cut an anchor, star and other designs of thin card-board,
cover on both sides with gilt paper and suspend from the chain, then
loop from branch to branch of the tree.
Birds'-nests are also pretty ornaments. Take the halves ot unboiled
egg shells, dip them in white of egg, make a hollow of moss in your
hand and put the shell in it ; be sure the moss is thick enough to cover
the shell ; line it on the inside with feathers and when dry, put some
candy eggs in them.
To gild walnuts to hang in the tree, hammer a rather long tack or
nail into the end of the walnut to hold it by and afterwards to suspend
it. Wash the nut all over with white of egg laid on with a feather.
Then roll it in leaf gold till it is well covered ; mind and do not breathe
over the gold leaf or it will fly away. When the nut is dry suspend
it by a narrow piece of ribbon.
The covers of old writing-books can be folded so as to form a cornu-
copia or horn, and closely pasted together, then covered with some
bright silk or chintz and finished with a box-plaiting at the top, and
strings of crotcheted cord.
The large fir cones may be transformed into novel match-stands for
hanging on the trees. The pedestal should be formed of rustic twigs,
and then bound together in the middle by fine wire, so as to form a
double tripod. The cone must be glued in the upper, and then both
that and the pedestal neatly touched by Chinese white and vermillion.
It should be varnished and, when dry, and the cone filled with wax
matches, has a resemblance to a porcupine.
Pop-corn strung on cord and made into festoons on the tree is also
pretty; crystallized moss hanging from the branches, acorns, sweet gum
balls and cotton balls are all very effective among the green.
The fashion is a good one, of putting all the bulky and heavy presents
in baskets at the base of the tree, instead of loading down the tree with
their weight and making the branches unsightly.
For a Sabbath school festival a Christmas house is pretty in place of
the old time Christmas tree. The house should be made of evergreens
and white wadding or cotton batting, and the chimney of straw board
painted to imitate brick. Two pages dressed in fancy costume (or not,
as you choose), knock at the door, when a veritable Santa Claus with
long silvery hair and beard, robed in fur, appears with his huge basket
of gifts.
One of the oddest and most unique ways of presenting Christmas
gifts to older people, when there is no tree, is to take the package and
roll it up in a paper and mark it with the recipient's name ; do this up
in another wrapping and write the name of one of the party on it ; pro-
ceed in this way until you have rolled it up in several wrappings. Then
136 HOLIDA Y FEST1 VITIES,
Page 118
Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Crotchet purses, bon-bons, preserved fruit, and alum baskets* help to make a beautiful and dazzling effect when the tree is lit up.
There is nothing that so brightens a Christmas tree as gilt paper chains. Cut gilt paper in strips about four inches long and half an inch wide, glue the ends together, slip the next strip in the ring thus formed
CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTATION. 135
and glue the end together, and so on until your chain is four or five feet long. Cut an anchor, star and other designs of thin card-board, cover on both sides with gilt paper and suspend from the chain, then loop from branch to branch of the tree.
Birds'-nests are also pretty ornaments. Take the halves ot unboiled egg shells, dip them in white of egg, make a hollow of moss in your hand and put the shell in it ; be sure the moss is thick enough to cover the shell ; line it on the inside with feathers and when dry, put some candy eggs in them.
To gild walnuts to hang in the tree, hammer a rather long tack or nail into the end of the walnut to hold it by and afterwards to suspend it. Wash the nut all over with white of egg laid on with a feather. Then roll it in leaf gold till it is well covered ; mind and do not breathe over the gold leaf or it will fly away. When the nut is dry suspend it by a narrow piece of ribbon.
The covers of old writing-books can be folded so as to form a cornucopia or horn, and closely pasted together, then covered with some bright silk or chintz and finished with a box-plaiting at the top, and strings of crotcheted cord.
The large fir cones may be transformed into novel match-stands for hanging on the trees. The pedestal should be formed of rustic twigs, and then bound together in the middle by fine wire, so as to form a double tripod. The cone must be glued in the upper, and then both that and the pedestal neatly touched by Chinese white and vermillion. It should be varnished and, when dry, and the cone filled with wax matches, has a resemblance to a porcupine.
Pop-corn strung on cord and made into festoons on the tree is also pretty; crystallized moss hanging from the branches, acorns, sweet gum balls and cotton balls are all very effective among the green.
The fashion is a good one, of putting all the bulky and heavy presents in baskets at the base of the tree, instead of loading down the tree with their weight and making the branches unsightly.
For a Sabbath school festival a Christmas house is pretty in place of the old time Christmas tree. The house should be made of evergreens and white wadding or cotton batting, and the chimney of straw board painted to imitate brick. Two pages dressed in fancy costume (or not, as you choose), knock at the door, when a veritable Santa Claus with long silvery hair and beard, robed in fur, appears with his huge basket of gifts.
One of the oddest and most unique ways of presenting Christmas gifts to older people, when there is no tree, is to take the package and roll it up in a paper and mark it with the recipient's name ; do this up in another wrapping and write the name of one of the party on it ; proceed in this way until you have rolled it up in several wrappings. Then
136 HOLIDA Y FESTIVITIES,