|
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 Tinsel was originally made with pure silver.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.
A Special
"Thank you!" to www.theholidayspot.com
for the terrific information!
|