The Christmas Rose

Christmas Rose or Helleborous Niger is an English plant that blooms in the winter in the mountains of Central Europe. It produces flowers from late fall to early spring. By tradition, the Christmas Rose should be planted by the door in order that it might welcome Jesus Christ into the home.

Isn't it wonderful to know there is a flower that blooms in the dead of winter!

Plant Care

The Legend of the Christmas Rose speaks of a young girl named Madelon who wanted to come worship the Christ Child. Seeing the gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by others who were drawn to the humble birthplace, she despaired that she had no gift to bring, for Madelon was poor indeed.

Wikimedia

In vain she searched the countryside for a flower that she might bring, but the winter had been cold and harsh – and there were no Christmas flowers to be found. Saddened, the girl began to weep. An angel passing over her stopped to provide comfort and smote the ground that was wet from her tears. There did spring a beautiful bush that bloomed of white roses.

Wikimedia

"Nor myrrh, nor frankincense, nor gold," said the angel, "is an offering more fit for the Christ Child than these pure Christmas Roses." And thus young Madelon went her way and worshipped the Prince of Peace, bearing the gift of her heart and tears.

Image above from White Flower Farm

Amazon

Who Knows Where The Time Goes....

....So says the old Sandy Denny song. It's been over a month since my last post....where does it go? Anyway, I have been pretty caught up playing a couple of Facebook games, Warstorm and War Metal Tyrant. Both collectible card games, Warstorm is fantasy themed and Tyrant is warfare, tanks, planes etc. Unfortunately they are both pretty addictive and I spend much too much time playing them (you can say that again, says Tina).

You can spend actual cash on these games but I don't. You can progress by winning battles and gaining experience and gold (or silver in Warstorm's case) to purchase more cards. There are several missions or campaigns that you can undertake and when you achieve certain goals you are rewarded with gold/silver or new cards.

So on the boardgame front not a lot has been happening, I am tracking Ank Morporkh  and The Road to Canterbury on BGG, as they look interesting, but not a lot of news at the moment.

I did find an interesting music app from Google called mflow which is pretty good. Apparently it doesn't work too well in Europe, but I have found that some tracks play OK and some only play once then you can only play a 30 sec clip. You can play the tracks as many times as you want in the UK though.

There are quite a lot of things happening here in St. Wolfgang and we have been to a few concerts lately. The local choirs had one a couple of weeks ago, 8 choirs from around the lake and a guest choir from Sweden, very good.

I will try to post a bit quicker next time :)

Kugels

European Art glass balls for holiday decoration are still commonly referred to in Austria and Germany as Kugels. Kugels range in shape and styles, according to the artist that made them and the season they are displayed. It is quite common to display egg shaped kugels at Easter and Heart shapes at Valentines day. Quality kugels are hand blown or mouth blown art glass. Most are blown into an apple wood mold to retain shape and consistency. Some artists free blow their kugel designs, thus ending up in an irregular shape. Air bubbles are common, and expected by the collector.

You can read more about antique kugels at http://www.goldenglow.org/kugels.htm.

More info and 40 items which are very pricey-http://www.ornament.ch/rubrik.php?rubnum=BK

The two images below are from my favorite...Martha Stewart Holidays.
Timeless Ornaments:Antique Kugels.  More info on kugels also.

http://www.hometraditions.com/antique-christmas-in-missouri.shtml

These antique ornaments range in price anywhere from $40 to $1,000 depending on their size and shape. Lovely ornaments from Christmas past.

Largest Gingerbread City in Bergen, Norway

In my previous post on gingerbread houses, I mentioned about the largest gingerbread city in Bergen, Norway. Assa, from Nissas Juleblogg sent me this link The-Worlds-largest-Ginger-snap-City. When I went to the website and saw the picture of the gingerbread city, which is free for children under the age of 12 to make their own house with the help of their parents, I was amazed in how much work must have gone into making this large miniature city! It's so beautiful. I would enjoy seeing this!  I went looking for images of it and found these on Google. Here are a few:

I also found a video on You Tube:



Hope you enjoyed watching. Have a great week!

Gingerbread Houses

This is one of 26 beautiful Gingerbread Houses you can view in a photo gallery at Martha Stewart's Website. I can't imagine the time that goes into making one! Very creative!

The harder German-style Gingerbread is often used to build gingerbread houses similar to the "witch's house" encountered by Hansel and Gretel. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations, often built by children with the help of their parents.
Since 1991, the people of Bergen, Norway, have built a city of gingerbread houses each year before Christmas. Named Pepperkakebyen (Norwegian for "gingerbread city"), it is claimed to be the world's largest such city. It's free for every child under the age of 12 to make their own house with the help of their parents. In 2009, the people of Bergen were shocked when the gingerbread city was destroyed in an act of vandalism.
Another type of model-making with gingerbread uses a boiled dough that can be molded like clay to form inedible statuettes or other decorations. Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs.
A significant form of popular art in Europe, major centers of gingerbread mold carvings included Lyon, Nürnberg, Pest, Prague, Pardubice, Pulsnitz, Ulm, and Toruń. Gingerbread molds often displayed the "news", showing carved portraits of new kings, emperors, and queens, for example. Substantial mold collections are held at the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Poland and the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany.

http://www.bhg.com,  Victorian Gingerbread House

http://www.bhg.com, Noah's Gingerbread Ark

You can read more about the different varieties and the history of gingerbread at Wikipedia. You can also see a video on building a gingerbread house HERE. Read about the largest gingerbread city in Bergen, Norway HERE.

Christmas Kitchen

We are doing a kitchen remodel in a couple of weeks, so I got to thinking about decorating the kitchen for the holidays.  For the Christmas obsessed (like me), each room of the house gets decorated.  Not just the living room with the tree.  Each room has a Santa or some holiday pizzazz added to it.  What do you do?  Do you like to keep things simple or do you go all out?  Here are some cute Christmas kitchen pictures I found online.

This first one is nice and simple.  It's understated but gives the kitchen a cozy Christmas feel.  I love the greenery in the windows.  It complements the lovely green colour of the cabinetry.  Could you image walking into this kitchen and smelling the wonderful scent of evergreen mixing with all the holiday baking?  This country kitchen is the epitome of simple Christmas living.

This next one is a bit more eclectic.  It's a modern Christmas palette.  I like the monocromatic look of all the silver and blue.  This seems to be a growing trend; moving away from the traditional reds and greens of the holiday. 

This simplistic, yet elegant, display still captures the holiday spirit without feeling too cold.

I hope these ideas help you keep the joys of Christmas in your heart all year long.  Remember, keep it merry and bright!

More on Antique Christmas Stands

I decided to check out more antique christmas tree stands and found a few Google Images. I love to look at the old tree stands. It's just nostalgic! If you missed my very first post on Christmas tree stands you can read about it Here.

This is a vintage 1950's Coloramic Christmas tree stand Snowman lithography, boxed, that sold for $99.00 at Vintage Toys.  It's beautiful!

This beauty was found at Khlmolds. There are several other beautiful cast iron or poured metal tree stands here and ways to use them.

Now I really don't know that this one is an antique, but I just thought it was beautiful! It too is made of cast iron and I found it at  The Christmas Cabin LTD.

Another cast iron tree stand found at Christmas in the Country. There are four pages of vintage Christmas items for sale at this website. http://www.gonecountryantiques.com/

This is an antique one being sold on Ebay for $50.00. Found it Here. Love the poinsettia design.

I think someone brought this one to my attention in my other post on antique Christmas tree stands. I can't say that I like it, but it is rare. The hole for a tree trunk doesn't look very big, so maybe it could have been used for say...one of those aluminum foil Christmas trees to light them up and make them shiny and reflective...  It sold for $20.49 on Ebay.  I looked up the comment on my other post on tree stands and the person who commented and his tree stand that is just like this one...only his looks like it's in much better shape...can be found on Blog Utopia. His was found on Craigslist.

I really love this one!! Vintage 1950's. Found at Flickr. and Google Images.