Schroeder Weihnachtspyramide 2021

This is a Weihnachtspyramide (Christmas pyramid) built by Albert Thomas ca. 1890. Albert and his wife, Wilhelmine, were German immigrants who arrived in Jefferson City, Missouri, in 1888. The pyramide was already about twenty years old when their youngest daughter, Edna, was about five, in 1910, per our family's earliest photo of it. Edna married Walter Schroeder in 1930, and the couple lived in the same house as Albert and Wilhelmine Thomas and continued to display it each year after the Thomases passed away in the 1940s.

With few exceptions, this Weihnachtspyramide has no doubt been used as a Christmas decoration every year since it was built around 1890. That's about 130 years!

Albert Thomas constructed the Weihnachtspyramide from a variety of materials. The paddles at the top were made from scrap wood from fruit crates. The central axle is a broomstick; on it rests the three circular platforms (made of cardboard). One of the hooplike, horizontal supports around the outer structure is from a discarded band saw. In its earliest form, when rising candle heat made the angled top paddles spin, friction was minimized at the pivot point at the bottom of the rotating broomstick by having a downward-pointing nail attached at the base of the broomstick, and the nail tip rested on a piece of glass. It had to be adjusted to balance perfectly in order for it to spin properly.

The family refers to this as a Christmas "tree," but it is more closely related to the wooden pyramiden that are hand-carved in the Erzgebirge region of Germany. Those often have little candles at the four bottom corners to provide the heat necessary to turn the platforms into little processionals at the center. Our family's pyramide has been altered so much over the years it's truly unique; a form of living folk art that changes slightly every year.

We have several photos of the "tree" taken over the decades. Many of the ornaments and figurines go back to the early 1900s and are visible in the old photos. The Thomases used to attach sprigs of real cedar or other greenery to the frame, in addition to the ornaments.

An early change was when the original candles were replaced with small coal-oil (kerosene) lanterns (three of these are still used as ornaments). Then, in the 1940s, those were replaced with strands of multicolored electric lights. A small electric fan, mounted on a nearby window frame, was directed on the paddles, turning the central platforms. (We even still have the fan, though it doesn't work, and the holes in the window frame are still there!)

In the 1950s, Edna's son Walter ("Buddy") procured a music box designed for rotating a small Christmas tree, and the tree was transformed again. This allowed Edna to greatly increase the amount of ornaments, greenery, and other decorations on the frame, the inner platforms, and even hanging from the paddles. Today, in the interest of being kind to the now-antique music box, we have opted to reduce the amount of objects hanging from the paddles.

Edna (my grandma) passed away in 2000, and we purchased her house in 2001. The Weihnachtspyramide (with its special attic closet) came with the house. I'm doing my best to care for it. We've made some changes--for example, replacing some ca. 1950s light strings that no longer worked and whose plastic sockets were literally crumbling away--but that's what Grandma would have done. She kept it "young." So it's my job to fiddle with it, too.

Apologies for the defects of my video. I'll keep working on my skills with the camera. I hope you enjoy this glimpse into our family's unusual "tree," and I hope you have a merry, and a blessed Christmas.

For more information about our Weihnachtspyramide, see my blog posts about it. Here's a good place to start.

And if you're wondering how this comes apart for storage, here's where you look.