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Happening
at the Crossroads
December 8,
2008
by Coggin
Heeringa
Crossroads
at Big Creek is greeting card beautiful. Last week, the Friends
of Crossroads decked the Collins Learning Center, the Door County
Historical Society created a pioneer Christmas in The Historical
Village, and nature has blanketed the preserve with glorious snow.
Speaking
of greeting cards, it's time for our annual lecture: "Greeting
Card Birds", which will be presented on Saturday, December 13, at 2:00.
Learn about the birds which grace our holiday greeting cards, while
getting the early polling on the Crossroads Bird of the Year.
Based on holiday cards received by the naturalist, we rank the favorite
birds each Christmas. Two years ago, penguins were incredibly popular,
and last year,chickadees appeared on the greatest number of cards.
It's
far too early to call, but at this writing, with etymological aptness
(and as usual,) cardinals rank in highest. American birds,
Northern Cardinals have nothing to do with religion or European holiday
traditions. As for Peace on Earth?... Not so much. Cardinals are very
aggressive. But cardinals are red, and on green trees, they look
festive.
But why red and green? What do these colors have to do with mangers and stables and peace on earth?
Christmas
colors have European roots. The ancient people of the British Isles
loved holly, believing it to be a magical plant. After all, it stayed
alive during the dark of winter, so obviously, holly had power over
darkness and evil. So these pagans fashioned circles of holly and put
them on their doors to keep witches (and tax collectors) away.
When
Christian missionaries came to England, they tried to prevent the
people from making holly wreathes. The people were too frightened of
witches to give up their wreathes so they responded in the Old English
equivalent of "No Way." and kept on putting holly on their doors.
So
the priest got clever. They explained to the people that when they used
glossy, but sharply pointed leaves, the wreath was a symbol of the
"crown of thorns" and the red holly berries supposedly represented the
blood of Christ. The people were happy. They priests were happy, And
red and green became Christmas colors.
Join the naturalist on
Friday, December 12 at 1:00 on a nature hike to enjoy evergreens. On
Sunday afternoon, between 1:00-3:00, you are welcome to borrow skis to
explore our winter wonderland (providing conditions are still
favorable.)
Ski trails are free and open to the public. Hikers
are dog walkers are asked to PLEASE use the designated hiking trails
and to stay off the groomed ski trails.
The Collins Learning Center is open daily 2:00-5:00. It is located a 2041 Michigan Street in Sturgeon Bay.
Many of
the Past News articles may be retrieved from this directory,
indexed and named in the following manner: 080101-news.htm
where
the first two numbers are the year, the second two the month and the
last two the date.
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