spinning a holiday web

USHERING IN the holiday season is Halloween. Alongside the shelves of the ever enlarging Halloween merchandise available every October, the Christmas shelves start to fill. There always has to be a trick with a treat to keep good little boys and girls in line. The Christian co-opting of these holidays had a lot to do with this. Several of the oldest European Christmas traditions seem more like Halloween traditions—tricks for bad, treats for good. The old-world traditions were modified to keep the sins of humanity in check in the Christian world. The meaning and symbolism depends on how you look at the magic and mystery of the holiday season that begins with All Hallows Eve. Halloween has its roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (a celebration of the end of the harvest season) and the Christian All Saints' Day. Although the latter holy day now occurs one day after Halloween, they were both originally celebrated on the same day. But with the blending of holidays one-into-the-other every year, it's hard not to get them all mixed up (like Jack Skellington did—more below).

LEAPING FROM Halloween to Christmas isn't hard web to spin at all. According to German and Ukraine legend, a poor woman was unable to buy decorations for the holiday tree and decorated it with fruits and nuts. Spiders that were displaced in the holiday cleaning of the house spun beautiful webs all over the tree Christmas Eve night. When Father Christmas visited the house, he saw the web-covered tree and changed the webs to silver. Christmas morning, the family awoke to a sparkling tree covered in silver "tinsel." The legend of the Christmas spider is commemorated by placing a silver spider in its web and using tinsel on the tree. The magic of the holiday season is ushered in by the sinister things associated with Halloween (like spiders) every year. The stories have all been modified to fit how one sees best—religious or secular.

IT'S HARD TO to believe the 1993 Tim Burton stop-motion animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas has already celebrated its 15th anniversary (last year). In the movie, Jack Skellington from Halloween Town opens a portal to Christmas Town and becomes enamored with Christmas, and the fusing of the holidays ensues to great effect. This movie is Tim Burton's best animated film in my opinion. It has a purely magical quality that stands above many of his successive films. It is consistently rated as one of the best Christmas films and  blends the two holidays in an unprecedented way. It's not hard to see how Jack Skellington was inspired by Christmas, even though his attempts are off-kilter because all he has known is Halloween.
 

HALLOWEEN FESTIVE | (Above, right) The large white pumpkin topped by a bewitched bird is from Ross. Green and orange Polish ornaments are reminiscent of a pumpkin and the calyxes of Chinese lanterns. The cat head noisemaker, along with the pumpkin/lantern ornaments are from Cost Plus World Market, and shown nestled with a real miniature white pumpkin and seasonal gourds (from Publix). The cat head noisemaker's (jingle bells attached with a pipe cleaner) original checked bow was replaced with a bow tied from 'Happy Halloween' ribbon from Martha Stewart Crafts at Michael's (2008). The small bumpy ornaments from Martha Stewart Everyday at Kmart round out this fall-colored collection. 

SPIDER SENSE | A Christmas spider in a large white bugle-beaded web ornament (above, left) was bought from a vendor at Scott Antique Market—I believe it is Czech in origin. The reproduction old-fashioned tinsel garland in a coil is from Bayberry Cove by Bethany Lowe Designs, was marketed for Halloween on one side of the sleeve it was packaged in, and for Christmas on the other side. It is attended to by a cardboard spider silhouette from Martha Stewart Holidays at Target (a test market?). The tiny orange and black Halloween baubles are from Border's. 

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

feats of clay

STILL HEARING the call of birds, it was interesting to discover that some believe Jesus produced miracles at an early age. "According to the legend, the main source for which is the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, the child Jesus, playing one day in the mud, took some of it and modeled it into birds. When he clapped his hands, they came to life, and flew away."*

CERAMIC BIRDS (made of fired hand-formed clay or molded clay slip), although not as delicate and not always as colorful as their blown glass counterparts, are still a beautiful addition to the decorated tree. My ever-increasing collection of bird ornaments contains all sorts of shapes, sizes and materials. I usually prefer the German glass ones, because they delicately perch on top of tree branches (attached with metal clips). Ceramic birds make a statement all-their-own. They can be washed or glazed with color, crackle-glazed, or clear-glazed with natural clay tones showing through.

IN TALKING with my coworker and good friend Peggy (who is a talented photographer and visual designer), she mentioned how much she liked my previous post about birds. She said she always thought of birds as messengers. Indeed, they are. They seemed to be tuned into the rhythm of the natural world much more than we humans are in our industrialized existence. Symbols, legend and lore involving birds are endless and timeless.   

IF NOTHING else, birds are our companions to nature in its purest state. And they are reminders of what it is like to always be able to take flight, even if only in our imaginations—a miracle in itself. 

FLYING FREE |  These porcelain clay ornaments (top, right) were found in three disparate places. (From top, to bottom), a crackle-glazed bird ornament from Kurt S. Adler bought at the Tannenbaum Christmas Shop in Omaha, Nebraska; in the middle is a handmade bird bought from an artisan at the Inman Park Festival in Atlanta; at bottom is a ceramic bird ornament from the Martha Stewart Everyday collection at Kmart.

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland

MEDIEVAL MYSTERY | (Left) In a church wall painting (probably dated from the 15th century) at Shorthampton Parish in Oxfordshire, England, the infant Jesus is held by his mother on her right arm and holds one of the clay birds out to another child on her other arm (probably Jesus' half-brother James).*

*Information from the web catalog (Medieval Wall Painting in the English Parish Church) of Anne Marshall, retired Associate Lecturer, The Open University in the U.K.. Photo by T. Marshall.