Grandma Moses Holiday Paintings

Sometimes holidays aren't official, and in America, especially, we love to celebrate important local events. Maybe that is passed down from our forebears. The community times of quilting bees and barn raisings were all looked forward to and took place in their own seasonal times of year. Grandma Moses helped record the celebrations of holidays from the self sufficient tasks of the farming culture she was a part of, and recorded how many Americans took advantage of times to get together and have fun while they worked.

Quilting Bee
1950

Grandma Moses also painted the special holiday times we all take part in within our collective calender throughout the year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~ observations about Grandma Moses~~~~~~~~~~~~

"As a hard-working, elderly widow who advocated traditional American values like industry and self-sufficiency, and whose appearance and mannerisms bespoke of a bygone era, Moses perfectly embodied an idealized representation of the archetypal "benign great grandmother," -J.E. Barnes

Halloween
1955

What is Halloween? In America, it is the time to dress up in costumes and on "Beggar's Night" parade through the neighborhood, visiting houses on the block for free goodies, especially favorite candies and candy bars. Many people hold parties on Halloween, and decorate their homes and businesses with appropriately scary decorations.

Pumpkins play a big part in decorating and celebrating Halloween. Carving out faces and making the pumpkin into a lantern is a favorite activity. Anything "spooky" becomes part of the event.

The Origins of Halloween
Originally, this was a Church holiday:
" ... In the eighth century Pope Gregory II moved the church festival of All Saints to November 1. The move in part offered a substitute for the popular pagan celebration of the Celtic New Year, which honored both the Sun god and Samhain, Lord of the Dead. The Celts believed at the New Year the dead came back to mingle among the living. As the ghosts thronged about the houses of the living, they were greeted with tables loaded with food. After feasting, masked and costumed villagers, representing the souls of the dead, paraded to the outskirts of the town leading the ghosts away. Horses, sacred to the Sun god, were often sacrificed, and there are some records of human sacrifice during the festival.

... Even into the eleventh century, many pagan beliefs were accepted by Christians-beliefs such as the fear of Fate, the use of medicinal herbs with incantations, sacrifices at springs and crossroads to the spirits of the place

... .In the tenth century, Abbot Odilo of Cluny began celebrating the November 2nd following "All Saints' Day" as "All Souls' Day" to honor not just the martyrs, but all Christians who had died. People prayed for the dead, and many other superstitions continued. Food was offered to the dead, and it was often believed that on these two festivals souls in purgatory would take the form of witches, toads or demons and haunt people who wronged them during their lifetimes." - Christian History Institute article,2007

The American Interpretation
From History.com,

"In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft.
At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. "

That is largely the way it is celebrated now, perhaps with less of the sense of fun, and more morbidly centered on the darker and more frightening side of the holiday.

In this scene, Grandma Moses shows the night alive with activity. The trick or treaters dressed up in sheets and the jack o'lanterns, along with the traditional holiday colors of orange and black recall Halloween for the painter and the viewer.

Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey
1943

Catching your own turkey for the Thanksgiving feast is a truly an event of the past for the vast majority of us, but the traditional feast of roast turkey with all the trimming is essentially intact.

In Grandma Moses time, as in today's holiday, Thanksgiving was a time for families of America to meet together while remembering the Puritans, the debt to the Indians, and generally give thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest that year. It is a time to reflect on one's many blessings while getting as stuffed as the centerpiece of the meal, the Roast Turkey.

Another scene of "Catching the Turkey"

'Over The River To Grandma'
1945

The song that means "Thanksgiving holiday" to many.
About the song

Over the River and Through the Woods

Over the river and through the woods,
To grandmother's house we go;
The horse knows the way
To carry the sleigh,
Through the white and drifted snow, oh!
Over the river and through the wood,
Oh, how the wind does blow!
It stings the toes,
And bites the nose,
As over the ground we go.

Over the river and through the woods,
To have a first-rate play;
Oh, hear the bell ring,
"Ting-a-ling-ling!"
Hurrah for Thanksgiving Day-ay!

Over the river and through the woods,
Trot fast my dapple gray!
Spring over the ground,
Like a hunting hound!
For this is Thanksgiving Day.

Over the river and through the woods,
And straight through the barnyard gate.
We seem to go extremely slow
It is so hard to wait!

Over the river and through the woods,
Now Grandmother's cap I spy!
Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done?
Hurrah for the pumpkin pie!

This artwork of Grandma Moses is not so well known as the others. It portrays the fantasy of Santa Claus, his sleigh, and reindeer flying up into the sky, a favorite tale of many during the Christmas Eve rituals of leaving cookies for Santa, perhaps reading the "T'was the night before Christmas" poem... and awaiting the big event, Christmas!

Twas The Night Before Christmas

Waiting for Christmas
1960

Surely one of the most beloved of holidays, Christmas in America has followed quite a journey to come to the present form. From the earliest Puritans who did not observe it at all, to the exuberant Victorians who created many of the traditions we now know as an integral part of Christmas, for many Christmas is filled with cut evergreens, shiny lights and decorations, sweets galore and festive social events.

For me, one of those people who loves Christmas, there is far too much to say on the topic for this tribute to Grandma Moses, but you might wish to look at Christmas pages about traditional ways to celebrate. I like the Advent devotional times that create an atmosphere of reverence for the holy event that this holiday celebrates.

Christmas Traditions

In a nutshell, it is the holiday in which we celebrate the nativity of Jesus, "Jesus is the reason for the season", as they say. It included the type of family closeness and joy that Grandma painted into her depictions of this holiday.

Notice the expressions on the children's faces as they await Christmas morning- the dreams of sugar plums are delayed in the excitement which puts off sleep to the very last possible moment.

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