My oldest daughter goes to keyboard classes, and her teacher is from Prague. When I was peaking in on them yesterday, he was teaching her a Christmas carol, and he referred to the “Norwegian Christmas Treasure”. Apparently we are the only country with numerous carols especially for Christmas (I can think of near 40 Christmas carols just off the bat), and the country in the world with most songs in general. The reason is that Norway used to be a very rough country, with very separated valleys and towns, and many remote areas, leading to little exchange of traditions in the centuries before 1900. I can’t vouch for these claims, but I think maybe there could be something to it…;-)
The graphics I’m sharing tonight is not Norwegian, but issued by the American company Louis Prang somewhere between 1861 and 1897. It reminds me very much of one of the beautiful Christmas carols, with the phrase “engler daler ned i skjul” meaning something like “angles are secretly descending”:
The phrase is from (one of) the Norwegian version(s) of Silent Night called “Glade Jul”. The original version is the Austrian 1808 “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht” composed by Franz Gruber, lyrics by Joseph Mohr. Neither the German nor the English version has the reference to “angels descending secretly”, so I have no idea how the Danish poet B. S. Ingemann came up with that phrase in 1850 when he wrote the Danish lyrics, which are the basis also for the most common Norwegian version used today.
Here are my Secret Christmas Angels:
Surprise! My Secret Christmas Angels are also tucked in a Norgesglass! (Vintage Norwegian Mason jar) and this time they are lit up with a candle inside. My picture does not show it, but the angels are also generously sprinkled with glitter…:-)
Here’s how to easily create this Angel lantern for Christmas yourself:
- Print out my sheet with two wraps (I used 170g matte photo paper, but I think even thinner paper would look good with these, since part of the point is to have them light up from inside 😉
- Cut out the wraps.
- Apply glue on the wraps and sprinkle generously with glitter (I used spray glue).
- Use a piece of tape to glue the sides together, forming a cylinder. I managed to get the tape on the inside of the cylinder, but you might want to practice that on a piece of scrap paper first, as it was a little tricky to do…:-P
- Ease the cylinder down into your jar
- Fill a little salt into the middle of the cylinder, for the candle to sit more steadily in place.
- Insert candle in glas cup, or preferably candle on batteries, to avoid any fire hazard! (A small string of lights would also look great inside this lantern!)
- TA-DAH: an adorable Vintage Secret Christmas Angels Lantern
This file is free for your personal use and enjoyment. Go to the download folder below to grab your high quality copy 🙂
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I have used the following graphics for this design:
Three Angels – Boston Public Library on Flickr
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Wings of Whimsy 
Thank you for the history behind these beautiful angels.
Sent from my iPhone
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Thank you for leaving a comment Dear, enjoy! xoxoxo
Thank you for a beautiful angel lantern, it will look very pretty at night.
Thank you, mine is glowing inside and out, and it looks pretty all the way around, so you can use it on a table too 😀 xoxoxo
These are so darling and definitely suited for a good old fashioned christmas here too. And they´ll be jsut perfect for a nice christmasgift for my daghters MIL, who we´re spending christmas with this year. She´s completely crazy about angels, and as we always use to make just a little something for each other, when we spend christmas together, I think this would be a perfect idea for her this year. She also just loves old stuff like me, so I´m very sure, she´ll just love this. So thank you sooo very much, for helping me solve this one already, that is soo awesome. You have a wonderful day sweet friend and loads of great fun too.
Awww, I’d be delighted to know that my “idea” made it to the other grandmother of your precious little ones 😀 Big hugs to you, Sweetie! xoxoxo
This is gorgeous and I love these little angels! Thank you so much for sharing this with us! I appreciate your idea for the light and I am going to make one tonight! This is such an inexpensive and easy gift idea I am going to make many of them. Thank you for being so generous to share this!
YAY!! Comments like yours make it sooo much fun to post my little whimsies and adjusted graphics here 😀 Thank you very much!! xoxoxo
I think I need to buy me some galss jars……and tiny string lights. :0) These will look lovely sitting around at Christmas. Thank you so much.
Yes!!! I found most of my jars at thrift stores, and have been collecting them all year. To think that my grandmother had the basement full of these, and we considered them ugly and useless…lol!! Tupperware was the only remedy there for a while…:-P I DO love my Tupperware, BUT I have also realized I love those glas jars probably even more… lol!! xoxoxo