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.
