Craft Center helps students create holiday gifts
From ornaments to Ukrainian
eggs, EMU Craft Center
creations work as alternatives
to store-bought presents
By Moriah Balingit
Freelance Reporter
As Christmas Muzak rings in the
holiday shopping season in malls
across America, students are left to
ponder that annual predicament:
how to get a loved one a gift they'll
appreciate while maintaining the
vow of poverty that college students
take — mostly involuntarily.
Options in the past have ranged
from "As Seen On TV" appliances to
the ornament that came with the
hamburger ordered during a rare fi
nals week study break.
The EMU Craft Center offers stu
dents an alternative to these default
options: hand-made gifts. The Craft
Center is hosting a number of class
es that may give students potential
gift-giving ideas. From wooden bird
houses to paper lanterns, the gifts
are limited only by a participant's
creativity.
In the Polaroid Transfer Card
class, students bring in their favorite
slides and transfer and manipulate
the images using art paper to create
personalized greeting cards. The
Center also offers a Ukrainian egg
painting class where students can
make decorative egg ornaments.
Laura Gerards, the "Craft Center
Queen," who teaches the class, not
ed that store-bought Ukrainian eggs
can cost anywhere from 30 to several
hundred dollars. The class is $24
with a term pass and $29 without a
term pass, materials included.
Special holiday classes cost be
tween $22 and $36, and many of the
classes provide extra materials.
The Craft Center is also open to
artisans armed with term passes to
make personalized gifts. Freshman
Steven Sessions etched his friend's
name and a goldfish in a flower vase
he purchased for $.99 to make a
personalized fish bowl. Fish bowls
typically cost several times as much,
he said.
In addition to economic benefits,
hand-made gifts offer "unique quali
ties that massed-produced gifts
lack," Craft Center "craffator" Jeb
Turn to CRAFT, page 6C
Tim Kupsick Freelance Photographer
Giving his gifts a personal touch, freshman Ben Cooper works on a vase for a friend at the EMU Craft Center.
Mistletoe legends range from kissing to Christmas
The myths and stories
surrounding mistletoe,
or ‘the kissing ball,’ span
several hundreds of years
By Lisa Catto
Freelance Reporter
It's unobtrusive, often hidden. Its
effects sneak up on unsuspecting
partygoers. Hanging above door
ways and strung from rafters, mistle
toe — that small leafy plant with
tiny white berries — is one of the
most recognized symbols of modem
holiday celebrations.
But the use of parasitic mistletoe
is not a new phenomenon; it was
considered sacred to many ancient
cultures.
Celtic people believed that mistle
toe had healing powers. In the Celtic
language, mistletoe means "all
heal." It was thought to cure dis
eases, make poisons harmless and
protect someone from witchcraft
and ghosts, according to
http://www.christmas.com.
Druids claimed to have visions di
recting them to locations where
mistletoe could be found. If some
one had a vision, they would dress
in white robes and begin a search for
the plant. If it was found, they
would climb the tree and separate
the mistletoe from the branches
with a golden knife.
Druids would only cut mistletoe at
a particular stage of the moon at the
beginning of the year. If an extended
length of time elapsed without a vi
sion, or if mistletoe fell to the ground,
it was thought to be an omen that
misfortune would happen, according
to http://www.botanical.com.
In the 18th century, Sir John Col
batch published a pamphlet called
"The Treatment of Epilepsy by
Mistletoe." This publication de
tailed the healing powers of mistle
toe for epilepsy. Colbatch recom
mended that mistletoe leaves, as
much as would cover a sixpence, be
consumed in black cherry water
every morning.
The 18th century English also
gave the world the kissing ball — a
Turn to MISTLETOE, page 8C
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