Vintage Handcrafted Christmas Decorations

The Ohio Village, a 19th Century working town occupying its own visitors' complex next to the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus OH, celebrates all the national holidays with a historical style. During the Christmas Season, the village embraces itself with the cloak of oldtime joy and winter wonder.

A Christmas tree placed as a centerpiece in the Colonel Crawford Inn in Ohio Village is a tree of antiquity and fond remembrance. A living tree, it has been decorated with ornaments that depict lighted candles, ribbons, clusters of pecans and walnuts, popcorn balls, apples, oranges, and sugared candies. On Christmas Morning, children in the 1800s and early 1900s of rural Ohio were overjoyed to receive a stocking full of an apple, an orange, nuts to crack, several pieces of sugar-covered hard candy, and perhaps some dates and cookies or a muffin. Between the Christmas Day meals, they made their stocking goodies last all day. They also did their farm chores that day and perhaps gave the horses, cattle, goats, and fowl an extra measure of food. A Horse would benefit from an extra apple left over after filling stockings.

A favorite activity on a farming Christmas Eve in the 1800s was telling the tale of how, if a child was very quiet and hid in the barn that night, he or she would hear the farm animals speak at midnight on Christmas Morning. It is the only day of the year that the animals speak and it is to proclaim the birth of the Christ Child. You may see some oldtime Christmas trees on display, decorated with carved farm animals, and perhaps this is the reason.

My father's lineage all lived the better part of a century each and he and most of his siblings were born two generations before World War II. They were born into the world of Ohio Village. It was the Reconstruction Era farm, the Saturday farmer's market in the town square, the one-room schoolhouse, and the Christmas stocking.

OHIO VILLAGE CHRISTMAS EVENTS

Dickens of a Christmas - Ohio Village is decorated inside and out as a Victorian village in winter. Activities include, decoration making, caroling, cooking demos of traditional dishes and samples, along with additional Victorian traditions out of Dickens' tales. Fridays and Saturdays in December 6-9 PM; Sunday afternoons.)

If you cannot visit the village, then enjoy Jim Carey's 3D version of A Christmas Carolor Patrick Stewart's one man production fo the same. Each one is a holiday in itself.

Dickens of a Dinner- A formal dining experience on certain weekend evenings in December before Dickens of a Christmas. Call 800-686-1541. If you should be alone at the Christmas Season, this is heartwarming and memorable. Don;t hesitate to attend by yourself and make new friends.

The hilarious Christmas Dinner with Lord and Lady Snobgrass. In 2010, this event is held on December 16. This is a gala English holiday dinner thrown in the "colonies" during the 1850s by a pair of opinionated Brits. Festive and fun with Victorian opinions and decorations and traditional foods.

Visit the Ohio Village pages for additional Christmas festivities.

I have only two photos of myself from childhood: a high school photo and a Polaroid of a 4-month-old infant under a bubble light beneath the Christmas Tree. Bubble lights were always my favorite and new bubble lights began to appear in the marketplace again a few years ago. In school, we made contruction paper chains of red and green rings pasted or glued togehter and we strung them completely around the classroom high on the walls.

After Thanksgiving, every class would choose a day to walk together one block away to the nursery and select a Christmas tree for their classroom. It smelled like a pine forest inside the small greenhouse building and onthe lot - a scent that is a favorite today. The little nursery expanded and now runs a holiday shuttle bus around the north side of town to bring people to shop for Christmas decorations and enjoy some related events.

Elementary school children made ornaments for their trees each year, and took them home during Christmas Break. Additional paper chains were joined by popcorn we threaded together as garlands and origami paper stars covered in glitter glue. I've recently seen some of these paper stars in antique shops and a plastic version for sale in upscale department stores. I prefer the paper.

We children were also each asked to bring a purchased ornament for the classroom tree, if we were able to do so. My favorite was a deep blue sphere on which winter scenes were painted in sparkling white glitter paint. It was beautiful.

In the 21st Century, Peanuts and Sesame Street ornaments are already vintage, so the old farming Christmas of the Civill War, the Victorian Era, and the mid-20th Century are even more memorable.