The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 8: Signs of Joy
Inside: Want a little Christmas joy? These cute signs are easy to make and add a pop of color to your favorite Christmas displays.
Signs of Joy
I love these little signs. A gorgeous pop of color which works great on a mantle, shelf, or Christmas tablescape. We actually made these for our Etsy shop, but I think they make a fun and easy Christmas craft.
We have two versions–a white with red word and a red with white word. Also, one has uppercase letters and the other lowercase.
Both versions have two coats of paint because we love that distressed look which comes from sanding down to the first coat of paint–in this case we used black chalk paint under the white with red word and a dark brown chalk paint under the red. We love the effect!
Here’s how we did it.
You Will Need:
–blocks of wood (I used blocks approximately 1 x 3 X 6, but you can use a 2 x 4)
–chalk paint in red, off white, dark brown, and black
–letter stencils, 1.5 inch
–medium 120 sandpaper
–paint brush
–stencil brush
–stencil or frog tape
–toothpick
–Mod Podge (optional)
–polyacrylic spray (optional)
Directions
- Paint the block of wood with either the brown or black chalk paint for the undercoat and allow to dry.
- Paint the block with either the red paint over the brown or the white paint over the black.
- Stencil the letters, one by one, allowing them to dry before moving on to the next letter. (Note: If you are new to stenciling, this short tutorial on YouTube will help you stencil without the paint bleeding around the letters. Highly recommended!)
- Distress the edges of the block of wood and slightly on the surface with the sandpaper, sanding down to the first coat.
- If doing the red with white letters version, use a toothpick to put small dots to look like snow.
- After the paint is dry, spray with polyacrylic spray if desired to seal the project.
Double the Sign
These signs also carry a message on the other side. We went with another short word, noel, in both the upper and lower case. Here’s how they turned out:
And the other version:
The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 7: Favorite Symbols and Traditions
Inside: Signs of the Christmas season are all around us, but did you ever wonder how some of our beloved traditions came to be?
*This post contains affiliate links.
This post first appeared in December of 2017. Enjoy!
From fruitcake to fat jolly men, the season is rich with symbols. While I’ve only scratched the surface concerning this topic, it’s been fun to learn the history of some of the Christmas traditions we hold dear, and, well, have strong opinions about. Read on and you’ll see what I mean.
Santa Claus
Saint Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop, was famous for giving gifts to children. His feast day, December 6, became a children’s holiday in Holland, though they refer to him as Sint Nikolaas, or Sinter Klass. English colonists living in New York–the former Dutch colony of New Amsterdam–called him Santa Claus because the Dutch name was too hard to pronounce. The English then began celebrating the feast day on December 25.
The German version of Santa Claus, Kriss Kringle, developed in the 1600s. German Protestants recognized the birth of the Christ Child (Christkindl) as the time to give gifts. Christkindl eventually became Kriss Kringle. In the Netherlands and Germany, their Santa often rode through the sky on a horse to deliver presents.
Our modern American version is largely due to Clement Clarke Moore’s famous poem “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas,” (think, ‘Twas the night before Christmas) which created quite a stir after it was published in 1822. Stores were quick to capitalize on the popularity of the Santa Claus figure, using him in their Christmas ads, and in the late 1800s, political cartoonist Thomas Nast, inspired by Moore’s poem, gave Americans their first glimpse of the Santa Claus we know today, adding in the red suit with white-trimmed fur, North Pole workshop equipped with elves, and Mrs. Claus.
Stockings
Legend has it that St. Nicholas placed homemade food and clothes in the children’s freshly laundered stockings as they hung by the fire to dry. In one account, he heard of a poor widower who worried about his three beautiful daughters and their slim chances of marriage due to being impoverished. Knowing the man would not accept charity, St. Nick slid down the chimney and placed gold coins in the girls’ stockings as they hung by–you guessed it–the fireplace.
Candy Canes
The story goes that a confectioner created the candy cane to represent Jesus. The shape of the letter “J” stood for Jesus as well as the staff reminiscent of His role as the Good Shepherd. The color white symbolized purity and Christ’s lack of sin. Red symbolized His blood shed for us on the cross. The peppermint flavor is similar to hyssop, a Middle Eastern mint that is mentioned in the Bible.
Another version of the story told of a German choirmaster who wanted to keep children quiet during Christmas Eve mass. He decided candy might help him achieve his objective, so he asked a local candy maker to put a bend in the candy to remind the children of a shepherd’s staff and to make the candy white to reflect the sinless life of Christ. There is no mention as to whether his method worked.
The Christmas Tree
While the practice of bringing greenery indoors is an ancient one, the modern Christmas tree can be traced back to the eighth century and a man by the name of St. Boniface who was converting the Germanic tribes to Christianity. The tribes worshipped and decorated oak trees for the winter solstice, and it was Boniface who chose to chop down one particular enormous oak tree, the center of their worship. In the place where that oak tree had been, a fir tree grew, which was offered as a symbol of Christianity, and the new converts began decorating the evergreens.
Prince Albert, who was German, introduced the Christmas tree to England after his marriage to Queen Victoria in 1840, and it became all the rage in London. Back then, it was common to put burning candles on the trees. (Can you say fire marshal?) German immigrants settling in Pennsylvania brought the tradition of the Christmas tree to America.
Poinsettia
Called “The Flower of the Holy Night” (Flores de Noche Buena), the plant is found growing naturally in Mexico for only a short time during the Advent season. The red bracts of the flower represent the Star of Bethlehem which led the wise men to the Christ Child, and seventeenth-century Franciscan priests in Mexico placed the flowers around the manger in their Nativity celebrations.
In 1828 Dr. Joel Poinsett, the American ambassador to Mexico, introduced the plant to America after cultivating it in greenhouses. Currently poinsettias make up 88 percent of Christmas plant sales.
Fruitcake
The cake everyone loves–or loves to hate! Who knows when someone came up with the idea of combining fruit, honey, nuts, and alcohol into an edible gift, but records dating back to before Jesus’ birth reveal a Roman concoction of barley, pomegranate seeds, nuts, and raisins. In the Middle Ages, as dried fruit became more available, Western Europe embraced the fruited bread. The ingredients greatly reduced spoilage, particularly as folks traveled long distances with the dense cake.
The fruitcake we know today finds its origin in English plum cake recipes. The tradition of reserving fruitcake for special occasions gained in popularity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to the costly ingredients.
Perhaps it was the “make in advance” quality that resulted in fruitcake as a food to serve for Christmas. Months and months in advance in some cases. Or maybe it was the convenience of mail-order fruitcakes, dating back to 1913 and still going strong today. Whichever side you come down on concerning this controversial subject, fruitcakes are likely here to stay. I’m hoping Mom picks up a small one so I can sample a little (or big) slice sometime over the Christmas holiday.
Yep, I’m one of those people.
My favorite fruitcake.
The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 6: Christmas with Charlie
Inside: Fifty-eight years ago A Charlie Brown Christmas broke many rules on the way to its debut–and went on to become one of the most beloved Christmas shows, pointing viewers to the real reason for the season.
I’ve had days like that. And trees like that, too.
This post has been updated since it first appeared here six Christmases ago.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is a holiday favorite in many a video library, but it’s surprising it even made it into the television lineup fifty-eight years ago. Looking behind the scenes at the making of the special, Charles Schulz and Bill Melendez encountered many problems in creating this endearing classic.
To start with, the script broke tradition from the standard Christmas programs based on classic literature and Christmas songs by telling an original story.
Coca-Cola, the sponsor of the special, gave Melendez six months to produce it with a budget of $76,000. Compare that to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which had a budget of $300,000 the following year.
Back then it was a common practice for half-hour comedies to have canned laughter or a studio audience. Charles Schulz objected to the laugh track and got his way.
To give the show authenticity, Schulz and Melendez cast ordinary children instead of voice actors for certain roles, which created problems when some of the children couldn’t read the script. Ultimately Melendez fed them the lines.
Three weeks before the show was due to air, the network watched the screening and hated it. They felt the pacing was too slow and the story lacked energy. They left the meeting vowing there would be no specials in the future. But when the program finally aired, 15 million households tuned in–about 50 percent of homes which owned televisions were watching. Suddenly the network had a change of heart. (Imagine that.)
Sometimes you have to break the rules of conventional wisdom and take a risk. You might just create a future classic!
Note: Mom sent me one of her daily devotionals that mentioned a subtle symbol in A Charlie Brown Christmas that most people miss. I’ve included the link here for the curious.
The 12 Posts of Christmas, Day 5: Simple Wooden Star Ornaments
Inside: A versatile little craft, these Clothespin Stars are a great project to make with the kids this Christmas season.
This post first ran in December of 2020. I love the homespun elegance of these simple wooden star ornaments. I think you will agree.
How to Make Clothespin Stars
Oh my stars! Clothespin Stars, that is. It’s day 4 of our marathon 12 Posts of Christmas, and we have a great little craft project for you. Making star ornaments from ordinary clothespins. Mom put together a couple of these last year, and I liked mine so well that I left it out all year long. So when she suggested this for our ornament project, needless to say, I was all in.
What You Will Need:
- 6 – 8 clothespins (the kind with metal springs) per star
- cardboard to make 1 3/4 inch circle (cereal or cracker boxes work great)
- materials for decorating the stars: raffia, ribbon, buttons, wooden cutouts, Christmas card cutouts, pine cones, paint, tea for staining. Editor’s note: Not all of these materials are needed. Get creative! Choose the materials you want.
- glue gun and glue sticks
Making the Stars
- Remove the metal spring from the clothespin by grasping the ends while simultaneously twisting and pulling them away from each other (like you’re forming an X with the sticks) and pull off the spring.
- Paint or tea stain sticks and allow to dry before gluing. You can also choose to leave them plain, as we have done with one of the stars.
- Glue the flat sides of the sticks together to form the points of the star.
- Take your cardboard and cut out a circle about 1 3/4 inches in diameter to make a base for the pins. (You don’t want this to show. Mom suggests coloring it was a magic marker to match the color of the sticks.) Note: A variation of this step is to make a larger circle (2 3/4 inch diameter) from some other material, such as the galvanized steel circle Mom used for one of the stars, in which case you want it to show. This might take the form of plain or painted wood, colorful cardstock, painted cardboard, Christmas card cutouts, tin, galvanized steel, etc.
- Glue points of the star together on circle base. (See photo.)
Glue pins together as shown. - Decorate the star. Here’s where you want to unleash your creativity. We like the natural look, so I formed a bow out of three strands of raffia and glued it to the center. Then I chose a thin piece of red ribbon to glue on top of that bow. I finished up with a tan wooden button glued to the center. (I was actually inspired by Nordic ornaments I have seen with splashes of red on straw-colored materials. Picture above.) If you like glitzy and shiny things, I’d suggest painting the star and applying glitter. Or use a wooden cutout, which are easy to find in hobby stores, to glue in the center as in this 6-point star Mom also made last year ( picture below).
- Attach a hanger to the back by making a loop from jute or ribbon that matches the look of your star and hot gluing it to the back of the ornament. Make sure it’s centered properly so your star will hang right.
Simple 6-point star with wooden cutout. Easy peasy. Now, post-haste, go find a tree on which to hang your masterpiece. Stand back and admire the work of your hands! Happy Christmas decorating!