I was at a holiday craft fair last week and I came across a table full of Christmas spiders. I had never heard of them but I guess they’re a thing in Eastern Europe. In the legend a miracle turns spiderwebs into silver and gold, making the spider a holiday hero of sorts. From the wiki article:
I like spiders as much as the next person, but I can do without them crawling around on my Christmas tree.
I am totally grossed out! Sweet dreams for me!
How do you think Rankin/Bass missed this one?
Is there a legend of the Christmas Vampire Bat? 
About as dumb as the Christmas pickle.
Spiders…eek!!
I love spiders. I’m on board with this one.
A lady selling beaded spiders on a craft stall told my mum this story and persuaded her to buy one for me about 12 years ago, and it has graced my tree ever since - but I’d never heard the story again until a Facebook post about 3 hours ago, and now this.
So there you go. Not just made up by a beaded spider maker at the local craft market - an actual thing.
I love spiders! I have never heard this legend before, but I think it’s neat. I am going to have to get myself a Christmas spider for next year.
Every year when we had a real tree there would be a few spiders on it; but they NEVER did any fancy web work.
Obligatory link.
In all seriousness, I like spiders and I think the ornaments are cute. I also have fond memories of reading this book while on Jury Duty.
I found a Black Widow in the box we store the fake tree in one year.
Did it die before it could pay up? I might have maybe killed it myself.
When I was a kid, one of the networks (this was back when there were only three) ran a week of animated Christmas stories in the lead up to the holiday. The two I remember were the spider, and one about a gilded statue of a prince that convinces a sparrow to take flakes of gilt off of him and deliver it to his needy subjects, whom he had neglected in real life.
About a year later, at a Christmas store with my mom, I found a spiderweb ornament covered in gold glitter. Some 35+ years later, it’s still on my tree.
My mom has a spider ornament for her tree, but it’s made from a couple of jingle bells, with unadorned wire for legs. Those beaded ones are beautiful.
Of course, Mom and I also both have plenty of real spiders in our homes, too, but you don’t see too many of them this time of year.
I read a legend in which Joseph and Mary and Jesus were being hunted by soldiers on their Flight into Egypt. They hid in a cave. That night a spider spun a web covering the cave’s opening. The soldiers showed up, saw the web, and said, “Obviously nobody’s hiding in that cave, since no web could’ve been spun in a night.” The soldiers left, and Jesus blessed the spider. Dewdrops on the web glowed.
Here’s a version: Homily Holy Family: Legend of Spider; Refugees; Anti-Semitism before Christian Era
Today’s Scandinavia and the World comic is about this very thing. I’d never heard of it before reading the comic, and now this thread.
I’m a little dubious about the tinsel=spiderwebs connection; I’ve always thought it was representative of icicles, or just for catching and scattering light to produce a “twinkle” effect.