Back when I worked @ Lewiscraft, I remember seeing for the first time, beading kids to make Christmas spiders... which was odd, it wasn't something I ever heard of.
It stuck with me though, and once I finish knitting my husband's sweater, I want to knit something spidery for the holidays... so I wound up googling Christmas spiders, and found this bit of information about them - and interestingly enough, explains the reason why we use tinsel on our trees as well! How wonderfully random!