How many of us use our decorating to bring our awareness back to God? The Chrismon is one way to do that.
I've always loved Chrismons, which in the churches of my childhood were made from styrofoam which was ornamented with various baubles that were gold, silver, and white:
Of course, some could be more elaborate:
I wish I could give credit for this image, but my Google search did not reveal the names of the creators or those who posted the images. It seems a fitting metaphor for this type of art/craft, many of which were made by women of the church who weren't recognized as artists.
I wonder how many churches still have these ornaments. I wonder how old some of them are. When I did a recent Google search, I found far more images of counted cross stitch Chrismons than traditional ones.
One of my most treasured sets of ornaments comes from the very early days of my marriage. My stepmom-in-law made me a complete set that was just like the ones she had made for her tree. As I've thought about hurricane evacuation, it's occured to me that I should put a collection of these types of ornaments that have special meaning for me in with the important papers.
This week, I discovered this blog post which gives a different twist: a quilted Chrismon!
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| Chrismons and Photo by Mitzi Spencer Schafer |
Quilter extraordinaire Mitzi Spencer Schafer gives complete instructions, along with some background on the Chrismon.
For those of us looking for ways to resist the secularization/commercialization of Christmas, a discovery of Chrismons is a great way. And for those of us looking for an arts or crafts project, making Chrismons could be a cool idea.
Maybe we'll do a project with our church's interactive service. If so, I'll post about it here.
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