Nature has fallen asleep by now. But wait – one really nice Advent tradition is that of Barbara branches. St. Barbara’s Day is December 4, and my mother always bought some branches for a vase. Not just any branches but such as from cherry trees or apple trees. As a child, I found it kind of strange, as these branches seemed to bring Nature’s barren state inside. Wasn’t it enough that all the trees outside had lost their leaves? But the miracle never failed to happen – by Christmas, the buds on the branches had burst, and there were leaves and/or blossoms. Like a resurrection of something seemingly dead in the middle of winter.
Of course, my mother also told us the legend of St. Barbara, the patron of – among others – miners, just as a background of the tradition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Barbara). She wasn’t Catholic, but her dad had been a mining engineer. Maybe that’s why. Strangely, I never asked her. I simply took it for granted that she was teaching us another tidbit about Old-World traditions.
