Institute of Texas Cultures (12/24/2014)

First stop: The Institute of Texas Cultures! We were here in 1968 when this was brand new and a part of HemisFair. At the entrance are flags representing the various cultures that are a part of Texas. Find the Irish flag and Patricia is just across from it. Per a sign on the flagpole: "Although Ireland did not become an independent nation until 1922, the color combination of the modern Irish flag was in use in 1848."

Entrance selfies...sorta.

In the Lebanese section is the story of Newman McKool and it mentions his son Mike McKool who is the dad of my friend and fellow Lamplighter teacher, Mitzi McKool.

They were celebrating Christmas at the Institute by displaying trees typical of some of the cultures. Here's the one in the Czech section. "Veselé Vánoce! Many Czechs decorate their trees in the traditional ways, using natural objects such as fruit and nuts, handmade decorations, and homemade foods. Bright red apples. cookies, candies, and walnuts wrapped in shiny foil, colored paper chains, popcorn strings, and beeswax candles. A manger scene may be put under the tree as might a loaf of bread.

"The cedar tree from the family ranch stood ablaze with candles in tin holders that had come from Germany with Oma's family. The tree bore cookies covered with glittering colored sugar and baked with hooks embedded in them, oranges, apples, and porous net stockings holding gay hard candies hung on many limbs. each family had at least a few delicate decorations, treasured and hoarded carefully from year to year." Flach, Vera. A Yankee in German America: Texas Hill Country. San Antonio Naylor, 1973.

Then there's this "tradition": The German Pickle Ornament. "According to legend, parents in Germany would decorate their trees with blown-glass ornaments--many representing apples, candy, etc. one was clearly a pickle and always was the final ornament to be hung, so the parents kept the children away until time to open presents. To the sharp-eyed child who found the hidden pickle ornament went either an extra present or at least the right to open his or her presents first. The problem with this wonderfully charming story is that there is no record of it anywhere in Germany. One explanation has a German immigrant fighting int eh Civil War who is captured and asks for a pickle as a dying wish. Other variations tend to run along the lines of the first narrative. Many are content to believe that the pickle is actually a German-American tradition, or even is unique to German Texans, but there is no reliable research of documentation to support this."

And from Poland: "The Christmas celebration, which lasted from December 24 through January 6, began with Christmas Eve dinner when the head of the household served everyone part of a small, flat, oblong wafer, an oplateck, which was blessed by the priest. It had a nativity scene impressed on it symbolizing love, friendship, and forgiveness. ... In some households, hay or straw was scattered in the ktichen and on the table briefly before clearing it and setting it for the big Christmas meal. This Old World custom reaches back to a time when the bounty of the field was transferred to the kitchen and the table, but since the advent of Christianity, it has come to symbolize the hay in the manger of Christ's birth."

Not a good picture of it, but I was fascinated by this timeline of Texas history where one inch is 70 years. (It's straight in real life...I tried taking a panoramic photo of it and got the curve.)

Answer to the ongoing game for this blog series: Two Patricias