Silver for the season

As I write this, the grey rains have returned.  When I was younger I always disliked November as "nothing good happens" or ""I have nothing to look forward to", yet now I see it's up to me to make my own fun and make the choice to burn brightly despite the blah.  And so we start winding up for the Christmas season - not the frantic commercialism that'll set in like a panic the week before, but the positive festive aspects. 
One of my most anticipated tasks is decorating a tree.  Big or small, real or fake, it doesn't matter.  I'll decorate anyone's tree who will let me, that way we can enjoy it all December.
So here is one done; she has two steamer trunks full of ornaments accumulated over years that won't all fit onto a tiny tree, so I can pick and choose what I want to use each year.  This year's motif was sparkly: glass, crisp white, shiny silver, soft grey, and a few hits of red to catch the eye.  It'll go with the sparkling wine for her party.

I recalled years ago hearing a German folktale about silver pinecones; while not specifically for Christmas I enjoy the thought of benevolent and charitable spirits in winter.

Silver Pinecones
Once upon a time there was a man and woman living in their home near the forested mountains, and they had many children.  The man worked as a miner, but fell ill and was confined to his bed.  The family soon ran out of money to feed their children, but more pressing was the dwindling firewood to heat their home in the cold nights.  The wife set out into the woods to collect pinecones that would burn brightly and perhaps she could sell for some food.
In the dark woods she was afraid as she began to collect pinecones, and even moreso when one of the forest folk appeared and demanded to know why she was taking his pinecones.  When she explained her situation he suggested she instead collect the pinecones in the next forest over, just a bit further up the mountain.  She climbed there, and was so tired she set her basket down and immediately pinecones rained down around her and filled her basket.
As she carried her full basket back down the mountain she thought the load seemed to get heavier with every step.  When she finally poured out her basket, the pinecones had turned to solid silver!
She had enough to buy food for the whole winter and medicine to heal her husband, and they had so many silver pinecones left that the family was never poor or hungry again.
To this day, many still keep a silver pinecone in their homes for good luck.

And I just found this one today, though a few variations on the tale:
Christmas Spiders
A woman was cleaning her house before Christmas and the spiders around her home fled lest they be swept away.  The watched from high dark corners as she set up the Christmas tree, and when she'd gone to bed they raced along the boughs and excitedly admired the ornaments on the decorated tree, trailing their dusty webs behind them.
When Father Christmas arrived, he was glad to see that the spiders were so happy but knew the woman would be heartbroken to see her tree covered with webs, so with one touch he turned the webs to silver and gold.  The tree was even more beautiful than before.