festival of trees

A second grade tradition, the Festival of Trees.  I remember Ambrose receiving his wooden tree (that a guy from school cuts out for each second grader) and decorating it.  Blaise thought and thought about what he wanted to do and decided he wanted a car theme. 

He spray painted the tree black, used duck tape to make the roads, hammered in some finishing nails to help hang each matchbox car.  What a wonderful school tradition, too bad it is our last one.

festival of trees

There is a tradition for each grade level at Seton, where the boys attend school.  For second graders it is the Festival of Trees.  Mr. Kuhn the maintenance/property manager cuts out a tree for each second grader (this year 36).  Each family is then asked to paint/decorate their tree however they would like.

Ambrose was singing the German version of O Christmas Tree, O Tanenbaum.  This turned into a conversation about our ethnic background and how he is 50% German.  He decided to do some research and this is what he presented along with his tree at the festival:

I am part German and so I decided to make a German Christmas tree.  Here is a bit of history.

Germans were the first to decorate Christmas trees.  First Germans used apples, sugar sticks, cookies and nuts to decorate their trees.  Then they used wooden figures and glass ornaments.  The Germans invented tinsel and decorated their trees with it.

At the top of my tree is a Moravian star which was invented in Germany.  The folding of paper was originally supposed to assist young boys with their geometry lessons.  However, the star was adopted as the symbol of Christ's birth by the local Moravian church and now is known as the German paper star.

The entire school was invited to come and look at all of the trees.  What a wonderful tradition!

 

Santa even stopped by