Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Chistmas! Happy Yule!

Christmas Kids celebrates Christmas 365 days a year, but the most special day of course, is December 25th when Santa Claus comes to visit each child bringing gifts and the season's good cheer.

There's lot of fun things to do at Christmas Kids where you'll find educational and entertaining Christmas surprizes.

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Fruit Basket Decoration

Fruit has of course always been associated with Christmas. In Europe fruits and nuts and gingerbreads were popular gifts, and small locally grown apples and hard pears and nuts were often placed on Christmas trees throughout Europe and Britain. But ONLY locally grown and plentiful fruits, which were later eaten from the branches as part of the Christmas feasting.

CHRISTMAS MARKETS & THE WAX FRUIT ORNAMENT

The Christmas Tree decoration began really with the European Christmas Markets. These began in Nuremburg, Germany in the 16th century. At that time they were practical markets with everything a housewife needed to prepare for Christmas - from the knife-grinder to the toy-maker.

The Gingerbread makers used honey in their baking, and in those days the honey came raw in honeycombs straight from the beehives. They were left with large quantities of wax, which they began to clean, and press into the carved wooden moulds used for making the gingerbread. In the 16th-17th century these moulds were often scrolls, cherubs and plaque shapes, which were used in the making of plaster cornices for architectural work. Later, they were scenes from the Nativity story, men on horseback, animals and many other designs.

These wax models were fixed with a ribbon before the wax set, and painted or gilded and sold as 'Fairings', souvenirs of the Christmas Fair. People would take them home an place them on their trees. The most popular were angels and cherubs, and it was not uncommon to have a tree with many angels on it, collected from many years fairs.

In the 18th century, a special kind of Angel was made in Nuremburg, called a 'Rauschgoldengel', which means gilded tin angel, it had a wax face and hands, and a gown and crown made from tiered gilded tin.

The glass ornament industry did not begin until the mid 19th century, so wax ornaments were very popular.