The Strawberry Top

True story - first published 2001

No matter how much we love the Winter Holidays with all the trimmings, there is the validity of Christmas 'stocking stuffers'  -
they are a refreshing escape from the "too-much-ness" of things.  

Stocking stuffers and similar "little-gift" observances renew the awareness that the true holiday spirit is a small and shining moment that connects people in light !   
A funny little thing can be like that! 

Stocking Stuffers shopping 1975, I purchased a little wooden strawberry-shaped top.
 Three inches high, in the shape of a strawberry, a simple green spinning stick protruding like a stem, it was painted bright red-pink, with green strawberry seeds dotted all over it.  

I love classics and tradition at the holidays and I hoped that the top would charm my family as it did me!

The Strawberry Top cost all of seventy-five cents as part of a last-minute holiday closeout, at a friend's decorator shop Winter Holiday sale, and found its place atop one of our Christmas Stockings!

Our nice life was full of the joys of the Season,and with lots of brightly wrapped gifts under the tree, for our "very-good-all-year-long" son and daughter (7 and 5 at the time).  

And on Christmas morning, after the thrill of the opening of gifts and glee and hugs all around, snacks and. church , our children were fascinated by the mirthful little top!  
They loved their gifts, but the Strawberry top was the surprise, a charmer that won center stage for their attention! We had to be firm about putting it away with the other Christmas things. But a tradition had been born!

Each Christmas, ever after, the top was among the first of the trimmings to be brought out from storage and the ceremony with Father,children and Mother gathered and gleeful at the thought of spinning that tiny Strawberry Top, signaling the start of holiday celebrations - each year more a family tradition !  

A wonderful top! 
An amazing top! 
A remarkable spinning strawberry top! 

When our teething Brittany Spaniel pup, Apples, put a toothmark in it, we held our breath, at top-spinning time: would it still spin? A wooden top depends on a delicate balance.   But it spun as merrily as ever!  And with Apples' toothmark in it, we loved it all the more !  The marvelous top would spin and spin, and spin and spin - and spin  for more than a full minute - and longer, sometimes !   My sci-tech husband was impressed with its aerodynamics!  Each time, expressing a strong and merry life at the Winter Holidays!   Its dynamic a family-as-one symbol...it's heart shape - OUR hearts as one.

More years passed and never without our "Strawberry Top Moment", but then: Our children were in their early teens, the summer their Father died suddenly, and soon, that first Christmas following without him - except for his spirit, with us, always !   Gramma joined the children and I for a trip away at Thanksgiving - it was too soon and too intense to make our at-home dinner without our master turkey carver!     But the draw of our own home and its charms and devotion to  the traditions and observances moved us to give Christmas a chance.  We began bringing out the boxes of things and planning the days ahead.

The Strawberry top achieved a mighty stature that year - the children, so solemn , at my side ... no jumping and giggling but the three of is hushed for their beloved Father, who was not there.  

Then came the quick and light and firm twirl to the now slightly-worn wooden stem, and off it went !    

IMPERTUBABLY ,

merrily,

steadily,

kind of dramatically sharing its magic with us!

 "I guess we're ok", I said, my words reflected in our children's faces - as that top spun and spun on the counter - downright plucky!  

"The Strawberry Top still spins ! " , our triumphant cheer !

And "Sure enough",  the challenge of painful loss only meant, that the  delight returned with a power!

With worth! Triumph!

Even after the children grew up and "flew up" to fine life on their own, the Strawberry Top remained a focus for us at holiday visits !  

By then it had become a true barometer, of a sort... life changes, but love is eternal !   

Our grownup daughter made an emerald green velvet pouch for the strawberry top, with bright red velvet lining, and tiny clear crystal beads, like snowflakes, on the outside, and a satin cord drawstring to close the pouch and protect it snugly.  Now, no matter where we did Christmas,  our top could come along, and make the key moment with "we-three" together and loving one another for another wonderful year!   A true bit of magic:  when a strawberry top finds your family circle, it is special.

And then, around 2008 - Gone!  

The top disappeared, somewhere along the path of holiday travels.  

We searched  "high and low", and over and over, whenever it seemed right.  

But no Strawberry Top!  It was gone.  I told the children, and sadly we marked that it had been...

A wonderful top! 
An amazing top! 
A remarkable spinning strawberry top! 

Finally, I prayed and the answer came:  "As special as we thought it,

maybe someone needed the Strawberry Top more than we did!  

And the angels who brought the little wooden top to us, in the first place, may have spirited it out to them!  

Peace and closure and we go on - and Christmas was still a delight.

But the little miracle was not ready to give up.  

In 2012,  preparing for the upcoming holidays, I remembered our top and  missed it, and glumly popped "strawberry top" in the search box at the top of my computer's  browser  - and life changed!

Strawberry tops !    

Plural !  

Dozens of them!  

JUST like ours!  

But more - orange tops, pear tops, apple tops, carrot tops and dancing all over the page before me in a color show - from  a company called "Londji" in Catalonia-Spain - they make classic wooden toys - and I tried to buy one of the strawberry tops - but at the time, they did not ship to the United States.    

Stunned and happy, but not available for purchase at the site, I could not let go, so close to home and  I emailed them with my story , in happy tears, asking the price for one strawberry top.

 They liked the story so much they published it with their things and sent me one strawberry top, refusing to take payment for it!

The day it arrived at the post office the snow was deep and still falling, but

I geared-up

and off I went - or should I say,  I flew ?  

And then friends from the neighborhood spotted me struggling

Theygave me a lift.

"Why so elated? It's just snowing.... "  they they laughed, and he gave me a leg up into the car, a sturdy four-wheel-drive.

I told them the story and they joined my merry mood.  

Soon we were at the Post Office and the tiny box was in hand and opened in the car to delight  another threesome in the snow - thirty years later!  

Thrilled and now back home, I made tea and just gazed at my restored Strawberry top!  

YES!

It was the right size shape and style in every way!  NO hurry to test it: clearly, it would not fail.  

I was glad I was alone - and sent a prayer of a sort that its tiny spirit always be graced to make and share the "Mirth on Earth" that was its destiny, and gave it a spin ... 

A wonderful top! 
An amazing top! 
A remarkable spinning strawberry top! 

Jubilation as I shared the news with our children - like the Angels at the Birth of the tiny Infant who would light the world !  

And today it is already basking in the glow - this year's spint done and done and inviting more whenever we like.  Yes!  The Strawberry Top still spins almost 50 years later!

May the strawberry top send some of its magic to you yours - and may your holidays merrily spin, and spin, also, and always.... happy holiday! ..............elle

update:  Tops are Pop again ... https://foreverspin.com/cart

And  "Londji" in Catalonia-Spain  for the wooden colorful traditional tops that spin for ages !

"JingleBells" - the crisis!

Controversy over the origin of the Famous Winter Holiday Song

By RUSS BYNUM, Associated Press Writer

SAVANNAH, Ga.

- Dashing in the sun, through oaks and Spanish moss.

Sleigh riding's no fun, when there's no snow to cross.

Could "Jingle Bells" really be a song of the South?

It's not hard to see why balmy Savannah has a tough time selling the Christmas carol as a native creation.

Or why the claim makes folks in Medford, Massachusetts, hometown of the song's composer, cry "Humbug ! ". 

This much is known: James Pierpont was the organist at Savannah's Unitarian Universalist Church in 1857 when he copyrighted the song,  "One Horse Open Sleigh,"  a title later changed to  "Jingle Bells."   One of the most popular American Christmas songs,  "Jingle Bells"  made Pierpont a pre-Civil War one-hit wonder.   But did he write it here as a piece of homesick, holiday nostalgia?   Or did he compose it years before in Medford, not seeing the tune as a moneymaker until he drifted south?   "No one really knows where he was when he wrote it - that's the rub" ,  said Constance Turner,  Pierpont's great-granddaughter in Coronado, Calif.   "Evidently, James was quite the free-spirit and he published some bad songs and one, at least, we know of that's a very good song." 

Medford, just outside Boston, claimed the carol without challenge until 1969, when Milton Rahn, a Savannah Unitarian, announced he had linked the song's composer to Georgia. Rahn was listening to his daughter play "Jingle Bells" on the piano when he glanced at the sheet music and noticed the composer's name: J. Pierpont.   He had earlier found letters John Pierpont Jr., the church's pastor from 1852 to 1858, had written home to Medford saying his brother, James, had come to Savannah as an organist and music teacher.  Further research found the composer had married in Savannah in 1857 weeks before he copyrighted "Jingle Bells."   "I saw this as something to help us get publicity for the church,"  Rahn said. 

Pierpont, who lived from 1822 to 1893, was said to be a wanderer who ran away to sea at 14 and later went to California during the Gold Rush. During the Civil War, he joined a Confederate cavalry regiment in Savannah, bucking his family's staunch abolitionist views. Though Pierpont came from an aristocratic family - his nephew was the financier John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan - he never made much money himself.   His other songs included several touting the Confederate cause, with titles such as "We Conquer Or Die" and "Strike For The South."   But none struck a chord like  "Jingle Bells." 

After Savannah erected a "Jingle Bells" marker across from the church in 1985, then-Mayor John Rousakis declared the tune a Savannah song.  To folks in Medford, that made Rousakis and Rahn a pair of grinches out to steal their Christmas history.   A series of not-so-jolly exchanges followed.   "In the words of Shakespeare, it is our intention to keep our `honor from corruption' ",  Medford Mayor Michael McGlynn wrote in a 1989 letter to Rousakis.  "We unequivocally state that `Jingle Bells' was composed ... in the Town of Medford during the year 1850!"   Rousakis fired back with an equally strong, unyielding letter.  "James L. Pierpont is still here with us,"  Rousakis wrote, noting the composer's Savannah burial.  "I am sure (Pierpont) will join us in spirit when we finally and formally proclaim Savannah, Georgia, as the birthplace of `Jingle Bells.'" 

According to Medford, Pierpont was inspired by the winter sleigh races down snow-filled Salem Street in Medford and wrote the song at the Simpson Tavern, a boarding house with the only piano in town.   Ace Collins, author of the 2001 book "Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas," says he found more proof of Medford being the rightful birthplace while researching his chapter on "Jingle Bells."   Collins said he found a New England newspaper from the early 1840s that mentioned "One Horse Open Sleigh" debuting in Medford at a Thanksgiving church service.   The song proved so popular, he said, Pierpont gave a repeat performance at Christmas.   When it comes to which city deserves bragging rights, Collins gets diplomatic.   Pierpont may have written his song in Medford, he says, but Savannah made him realize its universal appeal. "Savannah was the key," Collins said. "If it can play in Savannah, where snow was a novelty, it can play anywhere." 

On the Net: 

Unitarian Universalist Church of Savannah Georgia probable site of debut of "Jingle Bells" 

Medford Massachusetts birthplace of author of "Jingle Bells" 

Songwriters Hall of Fame ~ have fun finding the story behind other favorite songs, Holiday and "otherwise". 

The Twelve Days of Christmas Decoded

An Underground Catechism ~

You're all familiar with the Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" I think. To most it's a delightful nonsense rhyme set to music. But it had a quite serious purpose when it was written. It is a good deal more than just a repetitious melody with pretty phrases and a list of unique gifts. 

Catholics in England during the period 1558 to 1829, when Parliament finally emancipated Catholics in England, were prohibited from ANY practice of their faith by law - private OR public. It was a crime to BE a Catholic.  "The Twelve Days of Christmas" was written in England as one of the "catechism songs" to help young Catholics learn the tenets of their faith.  It was used as a memory aid, when to be caught with anything "in writing",  indicating adherence to the Catholic faith, could be risking one's very life!  Church history includes many British Catholic martyrs for the faith during this era. 

The song's gifts are hidden meanings to the teachings of the faith. The "true love" mentioned in the song doesn't refer to an earthly suitor, it refers to God Himself. The "me" who receives the presents refers to every baptized person. 

"On the First day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, A Partridge in a Pear Tree"                 The partridge in a pear tree is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury (since he rose from the dead) to decoy predators from her helpless nestlings, much in memory of the expression of Christ's sadness over the fate of Jerusalem: "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered thee under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not have it so."     This opening symbolic reference  bewails the current persecution, and the desire to protect the faithful and tutor the "nestlings" - christian children.

The other symbols mean the following: 

2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments 

3 French Hens = Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues 

4 Calling Birds = the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists 

5 Golden Rings = The First Five Books of the Old Testament, the "Pentateuch", 

6 Geese A-laying = the six days of creation 

7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments 

8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes 

9 Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit 

10 Lords A-leaping = the ten commandments 

11 Pipers Piping = the eleven faithful apostles 

12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle's Creed in P.S. below. 

-Paraphrased from -Fr. Hal Stockert 12/17/95 ( his version had to be cleaned up because his report of the persecutions  digressed into boyish delight in describing methods of torture....not really appropriate or inspiring. But no other changes made.) 

P.S. It has come to our attention that this tale is made up of both fact and fiction. But may it be  that this tale give  courage, and determination to use any creative means at one's disposal to keep one's faith alive.    Original resource: Copyright © 1987-2003 Catholic Information Network (CIN) - Updated: 12-26-03 

P.S.  RE: On the twelfth day of Christmas, my True Love gave to me, twelve drummers drumming.

The twelve drummers represent the twelve precepts of the Faith presented in the Apostle's Creed. The translation of the Creed given in the Catechism is given below.

1. I believe in God, the father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.  
3. Who was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary 
4. suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. 
5. He descended into hell.
6. On the third day he rose again from the dead
7. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.  
8. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. 
9. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints
10. the forgiveness of sins
11. the resurrection of the body, and 
12. life everlasting. Amen.

The Tablecloth - TrueYule loveStory

THE TABLECLOTH - true winter holiday story

The brand new pastor and his wife,  arrived in early October at Suburban Brooklyn, New York, newly assigned to their first ministry, to re-open a church  that was not in use,  very run down and needing much work.  Undaunted, they set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve 1970. 

They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls,  painting, and more.  It was December 18 and they were ahead of schedule and just about finished.  Then, on December 19,  a terrible tempest - a driving rainstorm - hit the area and lasted for two days.  On the 21st, the pastor's heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 10 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor.  Prepared to postpone the Christmas Eve service,  he headed home.

On the way, he noticed that a local business was having a flea-market type sale for charity so he stopped in.  One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center.  It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall.   He bought it and headed back to the church.  By this time it had started to snow.  An older woman was running from the opposite direction,trying to catch a bus.  She missed it.  The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus, 45 minutes later.  She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. 

The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area !

Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle.  Her face was very pale.  "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?"   The pastor explained.  The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials,  "EBG" were crocheted into it there.  They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria. 

The woman was stunned as the pastor told how he had just gotten the Tablecloth.  The woman explained that before the war, she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria.  When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave.  Her husband was going to follow her the next week. She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again!

The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth;  but she made the pastor keep it for the church.

To thank her for her beautiful gift,  the pastor insisted on driving her home,  that was the least he could do.  She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a house-cleaning job.  He then hurried back to prepare for the evening's duties. 

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve!  The church was almost full.  The music and the spirit were great!  At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return.  But one older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving.  The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall, because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago, when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike?

He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison.  He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between. 

The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier.  He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and witnessed the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine! 

A True Story - submitted by Pastor Rob Reid