1. The Candle Tea
The history of the Home Church Candle Tea began in 1929 when Miss Maggie Pfohl suggested that a Christmas putz be a project of the Ladies’ Auxiliary to be open to the public as a fundraiser.
Today, candle teas in Old Salem, still sponsored by the Women’s Fellowship of Home Moravian Church include the singing of Christmas carols with accompaniment on the 1797 organ, decoration with evergreens, demonstrations of the making of beeswax candles, drinking coffee, eating sugarcake, and viewing the large putz, and hearing the Christmas story.
Our St Peter’s Candle Tea includes Moravian Advent and Christmas hymns, a “putz” and greenry decorations, and the chance to eat traditional Moravian food, including chicken pie, sugar cake, and Moravian cookies.
2. Moravian Candles
Using lights for special occasions was often employed and symbolically represented the glory of Christ as the light of the world. Presenting lighted candles to children and later to adults during the Christmas lovefeast was certainly a decorative aspect of the service, but most importantly was a symbol of accepting Jesus into one’s life.
Simply putting candles in windows or on other items like fence posts and steps was another use of illumination. A Moravian writer in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, reports that the city’s twentieth-century tradition of “a candle in every window” dates to the eighteenth century when Zinzendorf’s house in Herrnhaag (called Lichtenburg, or “Castle of Light” had a candle in every window “to welcome the Christ Child” during the season of Advent. Many from that congregation immigrated to Bethlehem and undoubtedly brought the memory of the custom with them. Today the far reaching appeal of candles lighted in windows represents warm hospitality in Bethlehem, PA, and countless individual from other areas have adopted the custom, even extending it beyond the Christmas season.
From Moravian Christmas in the South, by Nancy Smith Thomas
3. Sugarcake
There are few references as to the ingredients used in sugarcake in the early Salem diaries. Although there are “sugar cake” receipts from an earlier period, they are quite different from the one that many Moravians make and use today. The modern recipe with lots of sugar may be a nineteenth century innovation that has evolved and become a more recent “Moravian tradition.” European antecedents for such cakes are not generally as sweet. Louisa Vogler Senseman did have a receipt for “Plain Cakes” that called for sugar, butter, water, cinnamon and pearl ash ((wood ash derived potassium carbonate, which makes a white alkaline salt.
A receipt for “Moravian Sugar Cake” appeared in The Moravian in April 1863, in response to a query from “a lady subscriber, and in compliance with other repeated solicitations,” telling us that perhaps sugarcake was just becoming widely popular among the Moravians. The receipt was asserted to be “the genuine home-made sugar-cake which we have taken down from the lips of several experienced housekeepers.”
From Moravian Christmas in the South, by Nancy Smith Thomas
Recipe #2 – Winklers Moravian Sugar Cake
INGREDIENTS:
2 (1/4 ounce) packages active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup water (110 F)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons non-fat powdered milk
1/4 cup instant mashed potatoes
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup melted cooled butter
2 eggs
3 cups flour
butter
For Topping –
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup melted cooled butter
DIRECTIONS:
1. Sprinkle yeast and 1/2 teaspoon sugar into the 1/2 cup of warm water.
2. Set aside until yeast bubbles, and mixture is foamy.
3. Add the next 7 ingredients, and about 1 cup of flour.
4. Beat with a wooden spoon.
5. Add remaining flour or a little more if needed, until bread dough consistency.
6. Place in a greased bowl and turn it to coat.
7. Dot dough with butter, and let it rise until double in size, about 1 hour.
8. Then, punch dough down, and place in a greased shallow baking pan (about 17 x 12 inches) Let rise 30 minutes, then sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.
Note: one reviewer commented "The 3 cups flour became about 7 to make it a workable dough. Must be an error in the recipe" There is no mistake in the recipe; this is a cake with a soft dough, not a bread. The term "workable" does not apply here; the soft dough will rise right in the pan. This is not a bread where you are continually kneading it into something that must be shaped. Had the reviewer simply patted it into the pan and let it rise in the pan it should have been fine. The mistake was adding all that extra flour and treating it like a bread.
9. Now the fun begins.
10. As if you’re playing the piano, punch your fingers into the dough making indentations.
11. Pour on remaining 1/2 cup of butter, and let dough rise another 30 minutes.
12. Bake in a preheated 375ºF for 12 to 15 minutes until golden brown.
13. Serve warm or at room temperature.
4. Apples
Through the years apples were mentioned countless times as snacks and treats for Salem children as well as decorations and gifts for Christmas. Moravian children received a candle, an apple or cake, and a nicely printed Bible verse at the lovefeast on Christmas Eve. Early European Christmas trees frequently had apples as adornments, reminiscent of the apple-decorated trees in medieval church miracle plays depicting the Garden of Eden.
From Moravian Christmas in the South, by Nancy Smith Thomas
5. The Moravian Star
The many pointed star, sometimes called the Advent star or the Christmas star, was introduced to Salem in the early 1900’s. It had been developed either as a handicraft or as part of a geometry exercise in several boys’ schools in Niesky and Kleinwelka, Germany in about 1850. Pieter Verbeek, who had been a student in Niesky in the 1880’s, began making the sars. His son continued the tradition by opening a small star factory in Herrnhut, Germany, and began to export them to America and other countries.
The traditional star has twenty-six points, but some have more or less, up to one hundred ten points. Some are lighted and some are not, and sizes vary. A popular modern variation of the larger star is a small origami-type star (folded paper strips in whit and colors) used for tree and gift decorations, and even jewelry.
Churches use Moravian stars during the Advent and Christmas seasons. The Moravian churches in Germany began to use the star about the time of the First World War or a little later. The rays of the star symbolize the greatness of God who made the universe, the star which led the wise men to the Christ Child, and the Divine Star, Christ himself.
From Moravian Christmas in the South, by Nancy Smith Thomas
6. The Putz
From the earliest days the Moravians enjoyed embellishing and adorning their churches with added beauty for special occasions, and that beloved custom was also brought into their homes. At no event did the Moravians embellish more than at Christmas. Their decoration was called a Putz, from the sixteenth century Saxon-dialectical word putzen, meaning “to decorate.” At Christmas, the nativity, or the Krippen, was a focus of the Putz. The Krippen may have begun as a substitute for human figures in church miracle plays of the Middle Ages. They were first carved, especially in Northern Italy and the mountains of Germany, particularly in the Reisengebirge and Erzebirge regions, not far from Herrnhut, where the Moravians may have learned the art. The figures surrounded by embellishments, including moss, rocks, and greenery provided a bit of poetry for the holy day, according to one Moravian minister. Although developed primarily for the young people of the congregation to understand the true meaning of Christmas, the decoration could sway the heart of an adult.
Greenery was an essential part of the Putz, certainly because it dispelled the gloom of winter, but also because it represented everlasting life and the Creator of mankind. In 1881 the Reverend Edward Rondthaler made reference to this important connection in his assessment of the Christmas decorating at Home Moravian Church in Salem: “It is indeed a graceful service thus to make God’s house beautiful with the works of his own creative hand.”
From Moravian Christmas in the South, by Nancy Smith Thomas