‘Labor of love’ decorates Chrismon tree year after year

97-year-old Womble leads the way

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PITTSBORO — Christmas decorations start showing up in homes and elsewhere long before the day itself arrives, taking forms from the simple to the elaborate.

For Louise Womble, however — who’s seen nearly 100 Christmases — one of the season’s most cherished decorating traditions is making Chrismons for the tree at Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church near Pittsboro. The 97-year-old is among a half dozen or so women who labor each year to have the church’s Chrismon tree ready on the first Sunday in advent.

“Chrismon” — a combination of Christ, whose birth is celebrated during Christmas, and “monogram” — translates simply into “symbols of Christ.” Traditionally, Chrismon decorations are gold and white, symbolizing majesty and purity, and have been used in the United States since 1957 — when a member of a Lutheran church in Danville, Virginia, created gold and white tree decorations based on centuries-old Christian symbols.

“We had Chrismons at church for years made of Styrofoam,” Womble said. “But they were hard to make. You had to cut them with a knife or scissors. And then when the church burned, we lost them.”

It was after that 1994 fire which destroyed the church’s collection of Chrismons that Womble and other church members enrolled in a crafts class sponsored by the Chatham County Extension Service. There, they fashioned a new kind of Chrismon decoration, using small pearl and gold beads.

“I think it was Jane Tripp who got the lady to come teach it,” Womble said. “We had folks from churches all over the county who came — Siler City, Silk Hope, Plainfield, Mt. Carmel.”

“Those we made then with the beads will last better than the foam ones. Ray (Gooch, the church’s pastor) went with us, but he said that making them was not his cup of tea,” she said with a laugh. “But I couldn’t do it today. I don’t see as well and the beads are small; it takes a lot of patience.”

For this Christmas season, a group of church ladies gathered one morning to decorate the tree with Chrismons made in previous years.

“We worked,” Womble said. “But we also visited.”

Womble didn’t place the decorations on the tree — taller members of the group like Jean Copeland, she said, did that — but she helped out by taking Chrismons out of storage bags and smoothing them out, straightening them and preparing them for the tree.

Still, there’s no question who’s the leader of the group. Jean Haywood said Womble is really the “supervisor” of the women.

“She knows what they all mean and she keeps us straight,” Haywood said. “Everybody in the church thinks so much of her.” (Also helping out this year were Barbara Pugh, Lessie Straughn and Linda Peace.)

Chrismons are made from patterns of various Christian symbols. The English word comes from a Latin phrase “Christi monogramma,” meaning “monogram of Christ.” The intent of the decorations is to make the celebration of Christmas more meaningful by drawing attention to Jesus, God’s great gift to the world.

“They co me in different sizes,” Womble said. “The big ones, like the stable and manger that symbolize where Jesus was born, have to hang on a low branch because they’re heavy.”

Among other Chrismons Womble made years ago are the star for the Star of Bethlehem; the Jewish menorah, symbolizing the golden lampstand used in the portable sanctuary established by Moses in the Wilderness and later in the Jerusalem temple; a butterfly, for the resurrection of Jesus; and a lamb to symbolize that Jesus is the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

“Barbara wanted us to have a lamb,” Womble said with a smile, “since she and Fred raised sheep.”

While the Chrismons and their meaning have remained unchanged through the years, the Christmas season itself hasn’t, she said.

“Christmas when we were young is nothing compared to what it is today,” Womble said. She and her brother, Tom, still live in the family homeplace where they and their deceased sister Doris and deceased brother Jack were all born to their parents, Gaius — “It’s in the Bible,” Tom said, “3rd John” — and Berta Clark Womble.

“Louise was the first,” Tom said, “and then Jack and Doris and then the baby, me, the black sheep.”

“We were poor,” Womble said, “but so was everybody else. At Christmas, we’d get some fruit and nuts, maybe a handkerchief.”

Tom remembers those days as well.

“There was a bench in the corner of the room and we set shoe boxes on them,” he said. “But we had a good house and plenty to eat. Mama was an extra good cook of everything. Daddy was sort of a horse man, buying and selling plugs. And for a while, he and Uncle Jack and Alf Bowls had a cotton gin.”

Only Jack left Chatham County, living and working for Thompson Arthur Paving Co. in Greensboro for years while Tom was well-known locally for working at what started as Farmers Mutual Exchange in Siler City, which years later became Southern States.

This year, Christmas will be quiet for the Wombles.

“The virus going around has changed things,” Tom said. “This year we won’t do much. I used to like to walk the woods, looking for a Christmas tree but not anymore.”

As for Womble, she said she misses the family gatherings that once were part of their lives.

“We’d have Thanksgiving here,” she said, “and get together somewhere for Christmas but not this year. It’s different for everybody. We’ve got a great-great niece who’s four months old and we haven’t seen her yet, only pictures.”

But despite those changes, the Chrismons, this long-standing labor of love will remain. After the holidays are over, “We’ll pack them and hang them up and store them at church,” Womble said. “The lady who taught us said to always hang them up.

“We’ve been carrying this on for a long time,” she said. “We need to keep on doing it.”