Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-12-17
THE CHRISTMAS TREE
NEW WAYS TO TRIM AND TO
LIGHT IT.
Safe Devices for Holding on Candles
Electric Lighting Illum-
ination.

The Christmas tree Of 1904 will be mar
vel Of artistic effects and mechanical per-
lection. The new ornaments are ablaze
with color or they CLEAN with spangled and
tinseled effects while from the illumination
of the tree to the miniature scenes with
which it is banked no effort has been spared
to introduce up-to-date embellishments.
While modern machinery has brought
Christmas tree ornaments down to very
reasonable figure, many of them can be re-
produced by deft fingers in the home circle
at cheaper prices and with equally good re-
suits.
For instance, almost any girl can make
little figures of heavy paper, pasting on
heads of Santa Claus. babies, angels or
pretty girls, and dress them in suitable
cloaks and garments built from sheet cot
ton batting sprinkled thickly with silver
dust. From this same sheet wadding snow
balls may be formed and fastened to the
tree by a thin wire. COrnucopiaS rounded
from silver paper, are effective ornaments
and are a good substitute for candy boxes.
Long crystal prisms which dangle from old
fashioned lamp globes or candlesticks, If re-
moved and hung, on the tip of each
branch, give the effect of icicles in the sun
light on morning after Jack Frost has
visited the trees in the midst of a rain
storm.
In connection with these homemade dec
orations, the Christmas tree will glisten
and sparkle if tinseled ornaments are inter-
spersed. Beets and carrots splenddly re-
produced in papier mache have sprouts of
tinSel leaves. Glass balls showing brilliant
green, red or blue hues glisten from a fill
ing of tinsel and are set in a circle of tinsel
leaves. Clusters of holly or mistletoe are
encased in punches of tinsel, while stars,
dwarf trees and sprays of asparagus vine
are built entirely from tinsel
No Fire Danger.
The danger of fire at Christmas festivity
is practically done away with by the use of
odd and dainty fairy lamps, instead of the
colored candles of past years. Cup shapes
made from translucent composition show
laughing faces of monks and brownies, and
are lighted by a short fat tallow candle
With pencil and brush clever fingers can
produce these lamps from isinglass Heads
of imps and animals, or a crescent showing
the man in the moon, serve as lanterns, the
ngnt SHINING through transparent eyes and
mouth.
However nothing is so satisfactory and
safe for illuminating the Christmas tree as
tiny electric bulbs of different colors scat
tered thlckly through the branches and at
tached to wires which receive their power
from portable battery. In house having
electric service the wires from the tree NAV
be connected with one of the house wires
ana the separate battery will not be neces-
sary. The cost of two or three dozen bulbs
with the accompanying wires and battery
will be from 81 to S.
For banking about the foot of the tree
the prettiest of inexpensive toys are dis
played, music boxes under a platform where
children are singing or dancing, miniature
Ferris wheels, loop-the-loops, saw mills
which are revolved by water power, leaden
figures representing soldiers from the Rus
sian and japanese armies and figures of all
the funny folk in comic supplements of the
Sunday papers. In all these decorations It
is to be regretted that there is each year
less of the original spirit of Christmas-the