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A Brief History of Christmas Tree Ornaments

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Christmas Tree Decorative Art
A Brief History

As we approach the 2009 Christmas Season, ToysPeriod invites all to join us in the festive spirit of the days and weeks to come.

How better to begin the celebration than to dwell for a few moments on the story of one of the Season's most colorful traditions, that of the Christmas tree with its accompanying decorations.

We have all heard the legends.

The Egyptian and Druidic priesthoods prized evergreens as symbols of everlasting life.

Ancient Rome celebrated Saturnalia with wreaths hung above doorways.

16th century Germany is rumored to be the first place where candles were used as indoor tree decorations. After seeing how beautiful the stars were at night, Martin Luther is purported to have wished to recreate this glorious image for his children.

To briefly interrupt our story here, Toy Tech has always been a bit suspicious of historical texts describing the juxtaposition of candles and trees, especially in the confines of wooden structures.

Surely 16th century fire marshals would have counseled Father Martin regarding the dangers of positioning candles in such a way. Lovely as they might temporarily be, we are certain old Smokey would have been more than a little concerned with such a practice. Happily, there are no reports of Father Martin or his children vanishing in a burst of glory.

So as to be sure of our facts, since the earliest record of trees and ornaments displayed together is to be found in early 19th century diaries, in this essay, we will limit ourselves to the period 1800 - 2009.

In 1800, for example, historical records make mention of fruit, especially apples and nuts, being used to make Christmas trees merry. These, along with the trees themselves, seem to have symbolized for celebrants the certainty of life returning in the Spring.

Between 1800 and 1850, paper streamers and bits of reflective metal foil became popular, so-called angel hair or "tinsel."

In addition to the fruit, nuts, and tinsel, we also read of gingerbread and other hard cookies being placed in the Christmas trees of that era. Cookies shaped like church bells, angels, hearts, animals of various kinds, awaited, presumably in a state of dread, the day when children, who had reserved their favorites, plucked them for personal use.

As the tree ornament tradition spread, nowhere else on Earth were so many differing practices observed than in the United States, where immigrant families were arriving by the hundreds of thousands. These families brought with them ideas such as hanging strands of cranberries or strings of popcorn on their Christmas trees. Others used ornaments made of lace, paper, and even cheerful woven baskets placed gently toward the central beams, many of them containing hard candy. Some tree decorators used multicolored yarns to lend added cheer.

Often, the trees were so heavily decorated, it was sometimes difficult to see them under the festive decorations.

In about 1847, we have the first record of artisans making glass ornaments sold specifically as tree decorations. Companies that had been making drinking glasses or windows began also making glass bells and marbles in celebration of Christmas.

Lauscha, Germany seems to be as close as we can come to identifying the origin of these glass decorations.

Not far from Lauscha, in the city of Dresden, fellow craftsmen were creating ornaments of pressed and embossed paper. Often highlighted with bright colors, these ornaments were not just Christmas-themed, but included birds and other animals that, while consistent with Christmas ornament traditions, could also be used for other occasions.

In the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria revitalized the tree decorating tradition which had been waning there. Descriptions and illustrations of her beside heavily decorated Christmas trees were circulated around the world, doing much to encourage a market for ornaments.

Many of the ornaments decorating the trees of Victorian households were of the handmade craft variety, and instructions for their construction were included in popular magazines.

As the twentieth century began, the number, variety and complexity of German glass ornaments was augmented by competitors in Czechoslovakia and other countries. These ornaments, because they were made by hand following glass making traditions, maintained the feel of individual craftsmanship, even when they were being produced in relatively large numbers.

Then after WWI, F.W. Woolworth in the United States approached the Corning Company of New York about making glass ornaments.

Corning had engineered equipment that ordinarily made light bulbs from a glass ribbon.

Since Corning knew F.W. Woolworth was the largest seller of tree ornaments in the world, they, Corning, thought at least they would investigate whether their light bulb machine could also make ornaments.

By 1940, Corning was manufacturing 300,000 ornaments per day, compared to the perhaps 600 per day for a skilled European glass blower.

Ornaments were then silvered on the inside, making them brighter than was previously possible.

To complete the historical picture, and in closing this article, we can only surmise how ornament design and manufacture will evolve during the 21st century.

With the Internet search engines driving most sales, the day of thousands of small designers of ornaments is probably at an end. The majority of consumers tend to shop on the Internet no further than the first two search engine result pages. Therefore, instead of supporting tens of thousands of small manufacturers that was once possible (as many as two per mid-sized community), today we are seeing all but a few producers ceasing operation.

In addition, individually manufactured or complex Christmas ornament designs are becoming harder to find, since both add to cost.

Big box stores have made an attempt to save some of the high quality ornament traditions with mixed results.

So, our best guess at ToysPeriod is that, in the future, there will be a few very large distributors of ornaments listed on the first two or so pages of a major search engine's results, and a drifting of ornament manufacture to countries where wages are low.

ToysPeriod will make every attempt to reach individual, high quality manufacturers. If the reader happens to be one of these, please do not hesitate to contact ToysPeriod.

In the meantime, enjoy the selection of photos of paper, wood and glass ornaments chosen for display with this essay. They represent some of the finest work available today.

To leave you with a ToysPeriod-oriented theme, the ambitious folks over at MOCpages (namely Rick Clark) have decorated their tree with do-it-yourself LEGO Christmas ornaments (photo of the resulting star tree topper at right).

Happy Holidays from all of us at ToysPeriod.

Ron - Toy Tech

Friday, 12:44 am | November 27th, 2009

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