The first thing to be considered is how to obtain a suitable tree.
If you are not near any woods, and intend to purchase an evergreen from
a nursery of trees, the “silver fir” is decidedly the best adapted for
that purpose. In the large cities, trees of all kinds can be easily
bought; they are carried through the streets for sale. If you go to
the woods, the common spruce is the most suitable. The hemlock is the
prettiest green, but its boughs are not sufficiently firm to bear any
considerable weight. If a spruce cannot be found, hemlock can be used
by nailing narrow slats of wood across the tree and under the branches,
as a support. Paint the slats green, and they do not show; in that way
candles and presents can be firmly fastened to its branches.
If the tree is not perfect in shape, nail on here and there an extra
branch, until it becomes symmetrical.
Take a small round tub, or half of a small cask. Place your tree in the
centre and brace it firmly, and fill the cask with sand. Cover the cask
with green moss; it is the prettiest green for the purpose. It can be
covered with little branches of hemlock if moss cannot be procured, or
even a green floor mat can be placed around it. Another simple way to
fasten a tree firmly, is to take a suitable block of wood, and have a
hole made in the centre just to fit the stem of the tree, and cover the
block with moss, or paint it. Then place your tree either in the centre
or corner of your room where it is to be, first spreading a white cloth
over the floor, which will not only protect your carpet, but add to the
brilliancy of your tree when it is lighted. Some use a small tree, and
place it in the centre of a table; the presents too large and heavy for
the tree, are placed upon the table. When your tree is firmly placed
in the right position, fasten on your candles with little tins, cut
in the form of a diamond, with two very acute angles, and bent in the
centre to form a right angle; push one point into your tree, and on
the other fasten your candle or taper. The latter is the prettiest,
and neatest to use. Buy the colored wax tapers. If you prefer you can
cut up candles. Tapers or candles can be fastened also to your trees
by wires, or by melting one end of the candle, and while hot, fasten
it by the melted wax to the branch of the tree. Also you can purchase
tins prepared to hold the tapers, made with a sharp point to fasten to
the tree, and one to put in the taper; that point must be heated before
fastening it to the candle. This tin has a hollow rim around it to
catch the melted wax.
Trees can be lighted with gas, by unscrewing the centre gas chandelier,
and fastening on a gas pipe reaching to the floor, with branches or
arms of different lengths, according to the size of the tree, longer at
the bottom, shorter at the top. Fasten your tree firmly close to the
centre pipe; the branches of the tree should hide it. The branches
of the gas-pipe should be wound with gold or green paper, and the
branches of the tree placed, if possible, over them. This makes a
brilliant tree, and is much easier to light, and does not require to be
constantly watched. But wax tapers are more appropriate.
When your tree is firmly fastened and the lights all arranged, hang on
your ornaments with wires and ribbons, commencing with the top of the
tree first.
We will give a few simple directions for making ornaments, which may be
useful to those who cannot afford to purchase.
To form gilded balls, take nuts, such as walnuts, filberts, and English
walnuts (the latter nut can be opened and filled with anything you
please, and then glued together again). Fasten a long tack or nail
into the end of the walnut to hold it by, and afterwards to suspend
to the tree. Wash the nut all over with the white of an egg, laid on
with a feather. Then roll it in leaf gold till it is well covered. Be
careful you do not breathe over the leaf gold, or it will fly away from
you. A cheaper way is to take a sheet of gold paper, and cut a piece
sufficiently large to cover the nut. Brush it with paste, then fasten
it round the nut, rolling it over and over in your hand, to fill in
every crevice. Apples covered with gold paper look very tempting; a
smooth-skinned apple, of medium size, can be used, and the gold paper
should be cut in sections, so that it will fit the apple smoothly.
Pretty little ornamental bags can be made of English walnuts. After the
shells are well cleaned, varnish and paint or gild them in stripes,
then bore holes in each half shell at the top and bottom, and fasten
them together with narrow ribbon. Another prettier way is to take
pieces of colored silk or ribbon, and fasten together at the side, then
take half of one side of a nut, and glue the silk firmly all around the
inside edge; hem the top of the silk and run in a string, or simply
take strong saddlers’ silk and run all around, to draw it up. Thus is
formed a pretty bag, which can be filled with candy; lace bags, filled
with candy and parched corn, are ornamental. Take oblong pieces of
coarse lace, run into the meshes bright colored worsted, then fasten
them into a bag firm with the same worsted, and draw them up at the top
with worsted. Birds’ nests add to the attraction of the tree. Take some
halves of unboiled egg-shells; dip them in white of egg (but first you
must have some moss ready), make a hollow of moss in your hand, and put
the half shell in it. The moss will adhere to the outside. Take care
that your moss be thick enough to hide the white of the shell. Line
the inside with down or cotton wool, and put sugar-plum eggs in it.
These nests look charming in the dark foliage of a tree. Small flags
are a great addition; we would suggest that flags made to represent
the national banner of other nations would be pleasant work for both
boys and girls, illustrations of all of which can be found in any large
atlas.
For horns of candy, get some white cartridge paper, cut squares,
ornament them with pictures, mottoes, gold, silver, and fancy paper;
shape them into a horn, and paste them firmly; cut off the top point
and bind the rim with paper or ribbon, also paste on a loop of ribbon
to fasten to the tree, and fill them with candy.
Glittering crystals, made of alum, are very pretty. To make them,
dissolve alum in hot water until it will hold no more, then strain it
off. Then take bonnet wire and form little baskets, sprays of leaves,
little wreaths, or make the wreaths of tiny sprigs of spruce, fir, or
take raisin stems (a slightly rough surface is necessary), suspend
these by a network of string tied across the top of a deep basket;
the dissolved alum must cover each article entirely; let them remain
undisturbed over night. Remove them carefully the next morning, and you
will find them glittering with minute crystals, resembling diamonds. If
powdered turmeric is added to the hot alum solution, the crystals will
be bright yellow. Litmus will cause them to be of a bright red. Logwood
will turn them purple. The more muddy the solution the finer will be
the crystals.
Sprays of mock coral, also tiny baskets of the same material, add to
the tree’s beauty. To make them, take bright red sealing-wax, powder
it, and dissolve it in alcohol. Then take your twigs, sprays, or
anything you wish to imitate coral, and dip them in the above mixture
until they are well dyed.
Baskets made of moss and filled with natural flowers, add a fresh
beauty to the tree. Balls made of cake, and frosted all over, look like
snow balls. Pop corn balls make quite a show. Bits of cotton wool,
covered with diamond powder, and scattered over the tree, imitate snow.
Take gold paper, cut it in strips a quarter of an inch wide, and an
inch and a half long. Take one of the strips and fasten together with
paste, forming a ring; then take another strip and pass it through
the ring just formed, and fasten it together with paste; continue this
process until you have made a long chain. A number of these chains,
festooned from branch to branch, resemble chains of gold.
Fairies always please children, and are easily made. Purchase some
small, jointed wooden or china dolls, and different colored tarlatans
for dresses, and form the wings of white tarlatan, or of white linen
banking paper. Take butterfly wings for a pattern; sew on gold and
silver spangles on dress and wings, or paste on tiny stars of gold and
silver paper. Cut little strips of gold paper, and roll them up, as
you do paper lamp-lighters, for the wands. Fasten them with thread or
wire to the hand of the fairy. The crown of the queen can be made of
gold paper, cut in strips long enough to go round the head, and cut it
in points in front, and paste it round the head. Fasten wire round the
waists of the fairies, leaving one long end to wind around the branches
of the trees. Thus they look as if they were flying.
Many pretty things can be made from egg-shells, such as pitchers,
bowls, goblets, and tiny cradles; ornament them with gold paper and
little colored pictures.
There are hundreds of little glittering toys, which can be purchased
for a few pennies, such as brass beads, little looking-glasses, glass
balls, gilded toys, &c., too numerous to mention; odd bits of tin hung
among the branches glitter very prettily.
Every member of a family preparing a Christmas tree, should use his
or her wits to contrive little inexpensive ornaments; even the little
ones, with some instruction, can make many pretty things, and it will
add tenfold to their pleasure to feel they have assisted in ornamenting
their precious tree; only let them _think_ they can do it, and most
assuredly it will be done.
In making presents, every member of the family should strive to find
out the wants and tastes of those to whom they intend to give presents,
thinking only of giving pleasure, and not of personal gratification of
their pride or love of show. The golden rule our blessed Saviour gave
us should be ever uppermost in our minds. Love should be the presiding
genius of every home festival.
God works upon our hearts in many and various ways. Often the simplest
thing in life may awaken us to a right sense of his goodness and mercy.
So in home influences, if a Christmas tree every year can add one link
to the chain which binds us in love to one another, should we not be
paid for weeks of labor? Every child thus early taught thoughtfulness
for others, must feel the good effects through life.