American Country Christmas by Mary Emmerling and Chris Mead was a picture book with minimal text showing Christmas decor from nineteenth century Americana. Some of the decorations were patriotic in theme. It is a coincidence that my own Christmas tree theme this year is antique decorations. The book was a small hardcover 17 × 17 cm with bright colour photos on every page. Sometimes there would be as many as six photos on a single page, however to see all the detail even on the pages showing one single photo, I used a magnifying glass.
In the nineteenth century Christmas trees were real, yet the authors found one example where a vintage artificial tree was used. It looked pretty scrawny! I like depictions of Santa from this time period, because he was often portrayed in colours other than red. I like renderings of Santa in a long blue coat, and the book showed Santa in a blue as well as a green costume.
Every couple of pages featured a few lines from a Christmas carol, poem or story. I liked rereading these verses before I immersed myself in the detail of each photo. The decorated trees were the most fun to lose myself in wonder. Fortunately the detail on some of the ornaments was easier to make out when they were shown in photos where they were not on trees. I was most intrigued by the fruit fans that adorned doors in an arched pattern above the lintel. I wonder how they originated, and why. I suppose they were only displayed in climates where fruits such as oranges and pineapples were plentiful–and expendable.