Christmas Decorations

Well here we are at another Friday and another coldish day here in my part of the world. Today we are looking at decorating our homes and churches for Christmas.

Well way back when it was common place to decorate houses and churches with evergreens such as rosemary, bay, mistletoe, holly and ivy, you get the picture. Houses would have leafy stuff around ledges and shelves. Well that is what it was like back in the old countries.

In the colonies it was different, for starters it was hot and some of those plants were not common place, so things like gum leaf saplings, and branches of wattle. The gum leaf saplings were dragged in and spliced through verandah posts and tied along railings to decorate homes and shops.

Towards the end of the 19^th century interest in decorations started to take off again influenced by the women’s journals of the day with instructions on how to fashion wreathes, create bon bons , paper chains and such.

I remember making paper chains with my mum as a child when we had little money for bought decorations.

Of course the Christmas table had a vase of Christmas bush, and it was possible to buy artificial evergreens which could be threaded into chains.

Of course the Christmas Tree added the final touch, Christmas trees were an old German custom, which spread to England when Prince Albert had them in the royal palaces. Here settlers happily used almost any species including she-oaks, gum, wattles and even a small olive tree said to be the earliest recorded Christmas Tree in South Australia.

Parents would often decorate trees as a surprised for their children often with paper stars, miniature toys and other ornaments. The large trees had a lot of ornaments on them with large gifts unwrapped for all to see placed under the tree.

If the tree was a small one it would be placed on a table surrounded by unwrapped gifts, and small presents hung from their branches.