Christmas Decorations

They range from hand crafted objects from blown glass to aluminum trees, nutcrackers and cardboard Putz village houses.

Christmas trees were decorated with candles, cookies and fruits until the mid 1800’s. At this time German craftsmen started the tradition of making blown-glass tree ornaments. The common themes for these ornaments were stars, hearts, fruits and angels which heralded in the tradition of using ornaments on the Christmas tree. There were also delicately spun clip on glass birds ornaments which were attached to a clip then clipped to the branch of the tree.

Molded glass ornaments were first made by The Lauscha company. Bohemia glassblowers made ornaments out of silver-lined glass beads known as Gablonz. In the 1880’s the artisans from Dresden created embossed cardboard ornaments both flat and three-dimensional.

Papier m?ch? candy containers were used as Christmas ornaments. If fact it was customary to make your own containers to hold the treats which hung on the tree. The most common candy container design at that time was coned shaped.

The Christmas village or Putz which were made up of tiny houses has been a part of the Christmas tradition for a long time. This tradition was introduced in the 1800’s to America by The Pennsylvania Dutch. Originally they were hand crafted wooden pieces which were then mas produced in America and Japan.

Prior to the invention of electricity, glass ornaments were used as counterweights and shades for candles which were attached to the tree by melting wax to the branches. In 1882, Edward Johnson, who assisted Thomas Edison, invented the _ rst electric tree lights. However, in 1917 safety bulbs were introduced to replace the original bulb which caused countless _ res. The new safety bulb revolutionized Christmas tree lighting to today. The designs of the new bulbs are endless and are available in many shapes and sizes including figural lights, flame shapes and novelty shapes.

The first blown glass ornaments were imported from Germany and sold in America at Woolworth’s in the 1880’s which started a Christmas decoration phenomenon. Shortly thereafter the figural blown glass ornaments were introduced depicting people or things. Then the Shiny Brites which were mass produced after the war were sold at Woolworths in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s.

In the 1930’s ornaments were usually silver, lightweight and had thin glass. The silhouette of these decorations were mainly pinecones, animals, flowers, fruits, vegetables and musical instruments. In the 40’s and 50’s another style of bauble was produced in bright colours with shiny indents and became very popular.

The Santa Claus sensation goes back hundreds of years to Turkey. Dutch immigrants brought the story of Santa to America and because the original name “Sinterklass” was mispronounced, the Santa Claus was born.

The image of Santa is part many Christmas decorations. The Santa image is seen in toys, decorations, center pieces and figurines.

The Coca Cola company was one of the first companies to use the Santa imagery in the advertisements in the 1930’s and at the same time they help develop the image as we know as Santa today. green