Christmas ornaments

People have been decorating their Christmas trees since the eighteenth century and from that time on the look of the ornaments changed a lot. In the beginning there were no glass spheres, but eatable pastries, gingerbread and little animals made of wood. Other edible decoration was added in the eighteen hundreds: little dolls, fruits and animals made of sugar and marzipan, and also candy canes were popular. Before tinsel was invented, people cut different objects out of paper and made colored paper chains. Many of these ornaments had nothing to do with Christmas: you would find carriages, hot-air-balloons and toys hanging on the Christmas tree.

There were two cities that produced the first Christmas baubles: the Lauschaer glassblowers in Thuringia and the ones from Gablonz in Bohemia.

My family has the tradition of decorating the Christmas tree with these old ornaments. We own the simple one-colored baubles, glass spheres with artful drawings, little birds and dolls, figures made of pearls, silver fire cones, bells, stars made of wire – there are a lot of variations.