History of Christmas Ornaments

vintage tin:History of Christmas Ornaments

Christmas ornaments have been and integral part of Christmas celebrations for years and it is a known fact that these have been teeming up with The Christmas tree for long. There are many myths, which revolve around the saga of the first use of Christmas trees. It is said that Christmas trees were first used in central Europe. These trees were a symbol of advent of spring and new growth. It is said that, such tress were first used by peasants to celebrate Christmas. Their Christmas celebration was linked with harvesting; hence, to make the celebration more colorful, they started decorating Christmas tree using different edible ornaments.

Transformation of Ornaments
Earlier, Christmas tree was decorated by edible ornaments such as fruits, candies, cakes, cookies and nuts. These were placed nicely to decorate the tree. In accordance with folklores, it was Germans, who first decorated The Christmas tree.
Later in early nineteenth century, edible Christmas ornaments were replaced by glass ornaments. They were first used in Luscha, Germany. It was the combined effort of a family, in which males use to do glassblowing, females conducted silvering and children made it beautiful by painting in different colors.

Arrival of Christmas Ornaments in Different Parts of the World
This German art stepped in England in Victorian era, when Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria) started celebrating Christmas at English royal residency in a way, how he used to celebrate in Germany- his native country.  In late nineteenth century, North Americans also started celebrating Christmas with ornamentation of Christmas tree. This was introduced in North America by those Europeans, who immigrated to the American continent. Here, Christmas ornaments became a symbol of affluence and wealth. With times, they grew larger and became more vibrant. Bigger Christmas ornaments were a sign of more wealth while smaller were for poorer people.
In 1890, when the very first North American Christmas ornament seller started the retailing of these products, he was not sure about his business but within a very short span his business grew up to USD 25 million. But, Luscha was still the king of Christmas ornament production, as until 1925, almost every hand blown glass ornament was prepared there only. After the Second World War, many ornament makers took refuge to other parts of the world. Countries such as Japan and Czechoslovakia cashed the opportunity and started manufacturing ornaments for North American markets. Started with edible ornaments, this market is dealing with a massive capital in the present scenario and is all set to grow by leaps and bound in the years to come.