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HomeBooks & AlbumsBookCelebration: More Christmas Angels
  • Dark Praise

  • Exploring Poetry of Presence II

Celebration: More Christmas Angels

This history of the angels of Noel looks at their gospel beginnings and traces their evolution through the Renaissance to their gracing of Christmas cards galore a century ago. In four chapters, infused with images form an international array of antique cards, we read of angels as heralds, angels as heavenly musicians and angels as Christmastime helpers. Musings on miracles, good news and great joy, and an invitation to share in what is beautiful, delicious, precious and generous.

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  • Description

Introduction

There’s so much we don’t understand.

Astronomers can map out the galaxies and systematize the stars, but where is heaven? Doctors can transplant the heart and plot the regions of the brain, but where is the seat of the human soul?

As Theodora Ward writes in Men and Angels, “No one has yet discovered by scientific methods a location for spirit, though the acts of spirit can be discerned by those who are open toward them.”

And this is the realm of angels. On their long sweeping wings, they gracefully bear the weight of the intangible.

In the Bible, angels are God’s messengers, as the Greek word angelos and the Hebrew mal’ak both indicate. And since the Middle Ages, they generally have been thought of as personified powers mediating between the mortal world and the Divine. Biblical stories portray them as intercessors, bearers of good news, assuagers of fear and guardians from harm.

In this collection of Christmas cards, the angels summon us to a joyful Christmas, creating a relationship between earthly tasks and a spiritual celebration. They remind us that at its heart Christmas is beyond an earthbound festival; it honors a miracle. On some cards they seem to revel in the holiday duties of our temporal world: lighting candles, cutting evergreen trees, and bringing forth flowers, fruits and gifts. On other cards the angels offer us a glimpse of unknowable wonders. We witness their unearthly splendor as they guard the crèche, play carols on their instruments and befriend animals in the woods. The late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artists who fashioned these cards depict them as our Yuletide partners, the harbingers of the season.

The tradition of sending written Christmas cards to loved ones coevolved in England and the United States in the 1840s as a way for people in the modernizing society to keep in touch with distant family members and friends. It is one of the few contemporary Christmas traditions without religious roots, and artists reflected this in their first Christmas card designs. They chose to depict earthly delights, such as sunny days, flowers and adorable children, or to emphasize the holiday’s lay traditions by showing large feasts and happy families.

Who were the artists behind these lovely antiques? Many were uncredited and so, unjustly, unsung. But the works of a few lithographer-printers, particularly Raphael Tuck & Sons of London, who provided Queen Victoria with Christmas cards, and Louis Prang of Boston, have become sought after. Both Tuck and Prang began producing Christmas cards in the early 1870s, and examples of their work are included in this collection.

Around 1890, the Christmas card was influenced by a deep cultural fascination with angels. The angel experienced a figurative heyday as artists and authors experimented with new uses and flourishes for the symbol. Soon the winged beings came to spectacularly enrich the previously secular holiday scenes.

Experimentation in the look of angels was nothing new. Though angels have augmented the Christian visual vocabulary since the fourth century, A.D., their appearances have changed radically. It wasn’t until the 6th century that artists typically included wings and a nimbus in angel renderings. Another major modification occurred during the Renaissance when the previously masculine, authoritative-looking figures were rendered with increasing frequency as females. By the 1800s, the word “angelic” usually referred to women, and artists portrayed angels as the epitome of feminine grace: rosy-cheeked and creamy-skinned. Cherubs also underwent a face lift around this time: the apocalyptic animal faces of Ezekiel’s cherubim emerged in the 19th century as chubby-cheeked, flaxen-haired angels with stunted wings.

The angels in this treasury reflect the popular imagination of the artists of their time. They emanate innocence, beauty, sweetness and joy. They extend delight to the eye and balm to the soul, inviting us to participate in the awe of Christmas.

The cards on the following pages date from 1878 to 1925 and hail from the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Italy and France. Some were printed in Germany for export. This collection reproduces cards that were printed in Europe but mailed in Australia or North America. (In the back of this book, we note the place and year of each card’s origins or where it was posted, when it’s known, or anything else of interest that you can’t see.)

Christmas can be overwhelming. That isn’t the point. Encouraged by these Christmas angels, may we, too, find the thrill in heralding the season with our loved ones—singing carols, decorating our homes, exchanging gifts, celebrating the spirit of the season and looking for good news to share.

—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Telluride Colorado

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Praise for Rosemerry

Wow, what a great response to both your reading and workshop.

Almost with tears in their eyes. Really. I have to tell you what was most mentioned as your fans applauded you; your family life, your reactions and theirs; it felt and sounded so real and most all of us have children so we all could relate. Unforgettable, you are.

Kathy Berg
Cortez Public Library, Poetry Corner Presents

Rosemerry, thank you.

For the first time in a long time I was moved to be creative and to use writing as a tool for healing. I could feel my stagnation begin to melt away in the Light that was presented today. I’ve been freeing up some space lately and asking that it be filled with people and things that inspire me to be the best version of myself and that is exactly what happened today.

Jackie
workshop participant

Revel in your own creativity.

To participate in one of Rosemerry’s poetry playshops, or to listen to one of her beautiful presentations, is an invitation to revel in your own creativity. She welcomes her audience into a landscape of words with a generous and irrepressible spirit, and speaks with a boundless compassion. Her love of poetry reaches out and connects with her listeners, opening a space with her audience that invites them to consider themselves, and their art, and their world, in new ways. To hear Rosemerry share her poetry is a felt gift. Her listeners cannot escape being touched.

Melissa Stacey
co-founder and organizer, Writers and Scribblers Literary Retreat

I think you have shifted the consciousness of my entire client base.

For this, and many other things, I thank you. You are perhaps the most professional person I’ve ever worked with. I’m amazed.

Craig Soren Nielson
Rural Community Assistance Corporation

Insightful, energizing, and entertaining.

Rosemerry, thank you so much for your inspirational program. The members of the American Business Women’s Association in Montrose left with fresh ideas on improving their work-a-day world and smiles on their faces.

Mavis Bennett
President, American Business Women’s Association, Black Canyon Charter Chapter

Through poetry, humor & song, Rosemerry brings the room to life.

Her highly interactive approach gives each child the opportunity to become a participant in a beautiful, creative experiment. With the support of Rosemerry, children are allowed to shine, to sing, to be silly – to be themselves, and everyone in the room leaves with the knowledge that living in this space of openness is always a possibility.

Erika Gordon
Coordinator for enrichment programming, Ridgway Elementary School

An extraordinary teacher and gifted poet.

Rosemerry’s talents have helped me achieve my dream of more publication. But what is most important to me is that I have learned to write with more confidence and understand more about how to craft deeper poems about deeper subjects. I have experienced healing, safety, trust, and fun in working with Rosemerry. When I bring a poem to her, I know she will continue to find ways to help me expand my creative potential. She never runs out of great ideas.

Phyllis Klein

An amazing talent to open up people’s creative minds.

There is some kind of magic in your smile, your encouraging energy, and amazing talent to open up people’s creative minds. You have facilitated a bit of a renaissance in our building. I have felt warm, enthusiastic vibes from even some of our more reserved teachers today. Of course, the students have it now and are exuding the joy of words big time.

Vicki Phelps
4th and 6th grade science teacher, Naturita Elementary School

Rosemerry touched their hearts.

Our students and staff benefited so much from Rosemerry’s visit. In just one afternoon of writing with her, people were surprised at how much they learned about their writing and their own process. She created a safe place where people were willing to risk. And the performance: Wow. I’ll never think of a sonnet the same again. Rosemerry has a way of grabbing the audience and delivering poetry in a way that makes it feel urgent and fun. As one woman said, ‘In my work, I just touch the surface of people. Rosemerry touches their hearts.’

Ruth Hackford-Peer
Associate Director of Student Life, Adams State College

A Better Place

The world is a better place because of Trommer’s poems.

Colorado Central Magazine
cozine.com/2018-september/book-review-naked-for-tea/

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