Celebrating the Winter Holidays, Part 2

Last week’s blog post focused on some winter holiday traditions, including Christmas trees. (If you missed it, you can read it here.) Of course, a lot of the fun in having a tree for Christmas is decorating it with ornaments. However, decorating indoor trees with man-made objects was much slower to catch on than previous traditions, and, like the trees themselves, the first ornaments came from Germany. This week we will meet a fascinating German immigrant who made St. Louis his home and might very well have helped your family to have a brighter Christmas.

Celebrating the Winter Holidays, Part I

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, you’ve probably begun decorating your house for the rest of the holiday season. Whether it’s lights and inflatable snowmen outside or an “Elf on the Shelf” resting comfortably on the living room mantel, most of us are fascinated by holiday decorations. If you celebrate Chanukah, you have started lighting candles and spinning dreidels, and if you are celebrating Christmas, you have likely already got your Christmas tree up and have hung all the family's favorite ornaments on its branches. As we like to do around the holidays every year, let’s look at how our ancestors passed down these traditions to us.

StLGS to Host Photo Scanning Event with Missouri State Archives

Do you have photographs documenting Missouri history tucked away in your attic, closet, basement, or even on your cellphone? Are you interested in safeguarding these treasures and helping to grow the photographic history of the state? You can help the Missouri State Archives preserve the Show-Me State’s now 200+ year history by submitting images to the Missouri Bicentennial Photograph Drive. Attend a photo-scanning open house at the St. Louis Genealogical Society office in January 2024, and help preserve some of our state's history. Learn how you can be part of an important ongoing project by reading on!