Friday 19 March 2021

THE TINSEL WIDOW

 

The Christian legend of the origins of tinsel concerns a poor widow who was left alone to care for her large family.

It was the first Christmas since the death of her husband, and she was determined to make Christmas as special as she could possibly could for her children.

The poor widow worked every hour god sent her washing, cleaning, and baking for the town’s people.

She went to the nearby forest and cut a Christmas tree for the house, but it was a struggle for them to survive on her meager income and they could afford no decorations for it.

Instead, she and her children made decorations for the tree they made snowflakes from scraps of paper and garlands from strips of old cloth and for baubles they used pinecones.

Working together they trimmed it as beautifully as they could with what little they had.

Spiders invaded the tree as they slept and as they crawled from branch to branch, they left their shimmering webs behind them.

A watching angel knowing the family would be devastated by what the spiders had done transformed the webs into shimmering strands of silver.

When they awoke next morning, they could not believe their eyes and they did indeed have a very special Christmas.

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