Christmas Baubles
Gare and Kitty via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
For some of us, it's that time of year when we drag out boxes of Christmas decorations
from attics, closets or storage units. A few centuries ago, people simply took whatever was readily available to spice up the look of their evergreen tree, the most popular items being apples and nuts. As the concept of decorating trees spread throughout western Europe in the 18th century, people came up with more and more creative ideas for tree decor. A few enterprising souls strung cranberries and popcorn together to create a garland, whose red and white colors were a nice contrast to the green needles of the fir tree.
Blown glass ornament, thanks for the memories via flickr /Artwork: designslinger]
As the popularity of tree decorating grew, enterprising German glass manufacturers in the
town of Lauscha, decided they had an untapped market. By the late 1800s, glass ornaments for Christmas trees were being mass produced in Germany and exported around the world. They set the standard for the most beautiful and innovative ornaments for decades.
TW Collins via flickr; /Artwork: designslinger]
The area we now know as the Czech Republic was once known as Bohemia. The glass
industry in that part of Europe started to give the Germans a run for their money in the Christmas decoration trade, but with the onset of WWII, it looked like the industry would soon be out of business altogether. So, a New York businessman involved in the export of ornaments got Woolworth's (the largest seller of ornaments in the country) to hook up with Corning Glass Co. to manufacture glass decorations. Corning could make 300,000 ornaments a day compared to the 600 a German glassblower could produce in the same amount of time. Eventually, the Shiny Brite company started selling Corning ornaments, and became Corning's biggest customer. In the past few years, Christopher Radko has been producing ornaments that hearken back to the days of the great German and Czech producers, and his ornaments instantly enter the collectors market as each new design is produced.
So dust off the boxes, get out the decorations, and we hope your Christmas is shiny and bright.
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