The tradition of Christmas trees and Christmas Ornaments is a much disputed one
what with several theories about their origin doing the rounds for a long time.
The most popular theory holds that the tradition was started by a monk who came to Germany in the 7th/8th century to preach. It is said that
this monk was Saint Boniface, the Apostle of the Germans. According to history,
the saint was the first one to bring a fir tree to the German people to
decorate, for he claimed that its triangular shape represented the Holy Trinity
- God, his son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The tradition was lapped up by the
devout Germans who started decorating the Christmas tree in a liturgical way
with simple, white candles. This however, changed in the 15th century when
ornaments began to be incorporated into the Christmas decorations in Germany. In
Latvia, circa 1510, a fir tree was decorated with roses which was associated
with the Virgin Mary. This event is often hailed as the pioneer of modern
Christmas decorations.
In 1605, a tree in Strasbourg (a city on the Rhine in eastern France near the
German border) was brought indoors and adorned with paper roses, lighted
candles, wafers, nuts, and sweets. This is said to be a groundbreaking moment in
the history of Christmas decorations for it kicked off a new trend, adornment of
the Christmas tree in an indoor setting. With time, the decorative ornaments
grew more diverse and each family used its own inventiveness to beautify the
Christmas trees. Later decorations included painted eggshells, cookies, and
candies. The high point came with the introduction of tinsel in 1610, an item
that has been a favorite decorative item since. Tinsel was originally made with
pure silver.
As time passed, the Christmas tree traditions gradually found their way into
English homes where the decorations began to be more ornate what with glass
beads and hand-sewn snowflakes being used to adorn the trees. With the arrival
of the 1800's, the Christmas tree tradition eventually began to invade the
American homes.
The first decade of the 1800s saw in the Christmas tree decorations the use of
such eatables as fruit (specially  apples)
and nuts. But why were these began to be used? The reason was not far to seek.
These were the items that would grow on trees. Moreover, along with the
evergreen trees themselves, these fruits symbolized the regeneration of life in
the spring season. Soon other fruits also began to be hung on the trees, along
with paper streamers and bits of shiny metal foil. It was from this time that
the idea of reflecting the light of the room on the tree came into being.
Christmas is, after all, a season of lights and merriment. The idea, hence, soon
became popular. One more concept arose during this period and began to be
practiced with much enthusiasm by many German homes. It was the use of foods
like gingerbread or other hard cookies, that began to be baked in varied shapes
as fruits, stars, bells, hearts, angels and were used in the decorations. The
idea was a great hit with the German folks.
As the tradition of Christmas trees and ornaments became more widespread, each
country added its own ingenuity to the decorations. Americans, for example, would string long strands
of cranberries or popcorn to encircle their trees. In the UK, imaginative
ornaments of lace, paper or other items showed the ingenuity and skill of their
makers. Small newspaper scraps or magazine illustrations also began to be used
in the family Christmas tree decorations. Small gifts were other items that
began to be hung on the trees, sometimes contained in little handcrafted
baskets, nestled in the crook of a branch or just suspended by a small piece of
thread. In fact, so much of decorative items began to be used during this period
that with each passing year it became increasingly difficult to actually see the
tree beneath the ornaments.
It is to be noted that until the 1880s, Christmas tree decorations had mainly
been the creative domain of family and friends and the only ornaments available
in the market were German hand-cast lead and hand-blown glass decorations. But
the 1880s saw many German entrepreneurs seriously thinking of manufacturing
ornaments on  a
mass scale and selling these strictly as Christmas ornaments. The idea was soon
translated into reality. The glass firms around Lauscha, the hub of the glass
ornament trade in Germany, which had until then been engaged in making glass
articles such as bottles and marbles soon began to create little glass toys like
molds of children, saints, famous people, animals and other forms and released
them in the market. This new type of Christmas ornament was an instant success
and was met with a huge demand. Soon, nearly every family in and around Lauscha
became involved in some way or other in the creation of Christmas glass
ornaments working either in a factory or in a home-based foundry. Now each
ornament had a touch of individual craftsmanship and became highly prized
possessions. As a result, Germany went on to capture the world market in
Christmas ornaments made from glass molds and for a long time was the major
world source for glass ornaments. Most hand-blown glass ornaments used for
decorations on Christmas trees came exclusively from Germany.
As the tradition of Christmas tree decorations had, by then, already caught on
in the United States, F.W. Woolworth, one of the foremost American mass
merchandisers, began importing German glass ornaments into the country in the
1880s. By 1890, he was reportedly selling $25 million worth of them.
The history of German Christmas ornaments is incomplete without a mention of the
non-glass ornaments that were manufactured in Dresden, a city near to Lauscha. The artisans in Dresden
constructed brightly colored ornaments resembling fish, birds and other animals
out of pressed and embossed paper and fitted nicely with the Christmas ornament
traditions. These were also suitable for other festivals and merry occasions
such as birthday parties, weddings and any other event worth celebrating. Like
the glass ornaments, these too were a hit everywhere.
Other ornaments around this time consisted of items made of pressed tin with
brightly colored printed surfaces. Thin foil strips, which are better known
today as 'icicles' or tinsel, also began to be created in Germany and found much
favor with Christmas celebrants the world over.
The long reign of Queen Victoria saw a revival of the Christmas celebrations
that had been lying low for a while. An illustration of her family around their
Christmas tree, that appeared in December, 1860 in Godey's Lady's Book, inspired
Americans as well as the British to embrace again the Christmas celebrations
without any inhibition. Carols, festivity, sumptuous feasting and of course
Christmas trees and Christmas tree decorations gained prominence once again.
With the commencement of the Twentieth century, Christmas began to grow more and
more popular among most Europeans and Americans and began to be celebrated with
gusto. It was during this period that the German monopoly over the Christmas
ornament market was broken. Since 1925, Japan challenged Germany's dominance
over the world market by producing ornaments on a huge scale. They brought in
newer, more colorful designs and began to bite off the German market. Later,
Czech Republic also entered the competition with an impressive amount of fancy
Christmas ornaments. By 1935, more than 250 million Christmas tree ornaments
were being imported to America. Christmas ball and bauble ornaments have been
quite popular since then.
Despite stiff competition from Czech Republic, Japan and several other countries
Germany retained a solid market base the world over because of originality in
the handicraft, even when produced in a huge scale for an ever-increasing number
of consumers. This was because the German ornaments were all handmade, by people
who often followed ancestral glass making traditions, something that showed in
their creations and continued to attract Christmas celebrants all over the
world.
World War I had a tremendous impact on the world market and the German glass
industry was not exempt from it. The War created a momentary backlash against
all things German. Though it was not long staying and the production and purchase of German glass ornaments began in earnest soon after
the War, the threat of another war approaching was felt by many. Max Eckhardt, a
US businessman associated with the glass ornament trade felt that his business
could be greatly affected by possible hostilities as another war was to mean
stopping of shipments from Germany. This made him think of a way of producing
glass ornaments right in the heart of America. He knew that the Corning Company
of Corning, New York had a type of machine that ordinarily made thousands of
light bulbs out of a ribbon of glass. Now what he needed was only to persuade
the Corning Company to determine a way to make American glass ornaments. In the
late 1930's, Eckhardt teamed up with a representative of F.W. Woolworth and
succeeded in doing just that! Sensing a golden opportunity, the Corning Company
agreed to see if its machine (one of which now resides at The Henry Ford,
America's Greatest History Attraction, in Dearborn, Michigan) could successfully
produce glass ornaments and meet with popular demand. And this was soon worked
out successfully.
The Corning produced glass ornaments met with a resounding success. By 1940, the
company was making  ornaments
on a much larger scale than the manually produced German items, and sending them
to other companies for decoration. The biggest customer was none other than Max
Eckhardt who by now had established an All-American company known as Shiny Brite.
Then the World War II broke out in 1939 which caused severe material shortages
and forced Corning to do away with the earlier practice of making the inside of
the ornaments silvered on the inside (to make them shine brightly for longer
periods) and instead decorate the clear glass balls with simple thin stripes in
pastel colors which required much less metallic oxide pigment. Fortunately,
Corning was able to alter its machines to produce an increased variety of shapes
and sizes of glass ball without using scarce war material. But the war crisis
resulted in a forced replacement of the sturdy metal cap (that held the little
hook for hanging the ornaments) to a cardboard one.
Post World War II, F.W. Woolworth's highly popular "Five-and-dime stores", it's
competitor Kresge and Neisner's and some more department stores like Macy's and
Gimbel's were the main source of Christmas ornaments and decorations. The
purchase of these ornaments were, however, limited to a few commemorative
ornaments a year. Complexity and variety of ornaments were the driving engines
of ornament sales.
The end of the Second World War also found most of Lauscha's glassworks turn
into state-owned entities. The production of baubles in Lauscha ceased. The fall
of the Berlin Wall resulted in most of the firms being reestablished as private
companies. Only about 20 small glass-blowing firms are active in Lauscha today.
Although glass baubles are still produced, baubles are now made mainly of
plastic and available worldwide in a huge variety of shapes, colors and designs.
Christmas ornaments are now an indispensable part of Christmas tree decorations.
The manufacture and sale of Christmas ornaments makes one of the greatest
markets worldwide. Despite being increasingly commercialized, the use of
Christmas ornaments lend its own special charm, an alacrity to the old tradition
of Christmas every year and infuse true enthusiasm in the Christmas
celebrations.
We hope you all liked this informative piece on Christmas Ornaments. Celebrate
Christmas to the hilt. A Merry Christmas to all from TheHolidaySpot Team. Click
Here to buy Christmas Gifts online. |
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