All About Glass Christmas Tree Ornaments
History of Glass Christmas Tree Ornaments
Do you have a great collection of glass Christmas tree ornaments? The Festive Season is a time when many of us lavishly decorate our homes with evergreens, candles, paper chains, and tinsel. But the pride of place in most of our houses and the focal point for all of these decorations is often our Christmas tree. The tradition of setting up a tree in the house goes back as far as pagan times in Europe, and was carried on through the centuries. Originally they were decorated with little candles, fruit, nuts, gingerbread shapes, wax ornaments and sweets, but in the 19th century glass Christmas tree balls were invented in the German town of Lauscha. Lauscha had been famous for glass blowing since 1597, and in 1847 a man called Hans Greiner invented a new process where the hand blowing process was used with moulds to create the glass globes and then the insides were coated with a mixture of silver nitrate and sugar water to make them look silvery. Lauscha is till famous for producing glass Christmas tree ornaments and holds an annual Christmas Ball Market during Advent. The Lauscha glass balls were discovered by F W Woolworth on a trip he took through Germany, and he imported them into America in the 1880s where they quickly became a huge success. Soon after glass tree ornaments began to be produced in America and are today still one of the most popular baubles to hang on your tree each year.
Planning Your Decorating
There seems to be two different approaches to decorating Christmas trees; there is the totally random approach and the planned approach. The random approach is where you have a collection of decorations and baubles that you have lovingly built up over the years, which are of all different colours, designs and sizes. When they are hung on the boughs of your tree they create a glorious splash of colour and warmth, and each individual glass Christmas ornament brings back fond memories of the time that you and your family bought it. The planned approach is when you have a colour scheme or a theme in mind for your Christmas tree and you purposefully buy sets of ornaments, tinsel, lights and ribbon that will complete your perfect decorating scheme. As these schemes and trends in tree trimming often change annually, it is probably more cost effective to get packs of glass Christmas tree ornaments in your desired colour and shape, rather than individual ornaments that will be rather more expensive. One of the best places to find these multi packs of glass balls is online. Amazon has a huge range for you to browse through, so get online today so that you can choose your favourites. The number of glass Christmas ornaments that come in a set varies, but sets of four, six, eight and twelve seem to be the most popular. There are sets of plain glass balls available in all the colours of the rainbow, as well as fancier sets with stripes or patterns or even glitter! You can also get sets of glass Christmas baubles that come in different shapes, like lanterns for example, and you can buy some luxurious handmade sets of glass ornaments if you want to splash out and have an extra special Festive Season.
Individual Glass Christmas Tree Ornaments
As well as the sets of glass balls, you can buy individual glass Christmas tree ornaments. You can choose exquisitely designed handmade glass balls that are beautiful but expensive, or you can get some really fun ornaments in different shapes and bright colours, that will twinkle and shine beautifully in your lights. There are of course, glass Christmas ornaments that you can find that are shaped into well-loved and favourite festive figures such as Santa Claus, snowmen, penguins and reindeer. There is even a pirate Santa Claus bauble available on Amazon. If you like quirky, unique things, then you will find that there is also a wide range of more unusual glass Christmas tree ornaments for you to choose from. I have seen really cute, painted mini Martini glasses to hang on the tree, trains, all types of animals and birds, cityscapes and toys. In fact almost anything that you can think of has been created as a glass tree bauble. So let your imagination run riot this Festive Season and choose some really unique and different glass baubles for your tree!
American Football Glass Christmas Tree Balls
Being English, one of the things I find really intriguing is that in the US you can buy glass Christmas tree ornaments supporting your favourite American football team painted in the team colours. There are football playing Santa tree ornaments, miniature football players, little footballs, tiny team helmets, mini team Santa hats and many, many more, so that you can show your yuletide support for such teams as the Oakland Raiders, Tampa bay Buccaneers, Washington Redskins, Cincinnati Bengals and the Denver Broncos. This trend does not seem to have caught on in the UK yet for our major soccer teams, but maybe soon we will have miniature glass Wayne Rooneys to hang on our trees. You can also choose personalised glass Christmas tree ornaments with a name, date or short inscription engraved on them, which you will be able to keep and treasure over the years. Get these personalised glass balls to commemorate a special occasion like the first Christmas you spent together, the year you got married or the birth of your babies.
So, as you can see there is an absolutely huge selection of glass Christmas tree balls for you to choose from. Whether you are looking for an elegant colour-coordinated look for your Christmas tree or an individual little treasure, you can easily find exactly what you are looking for.
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This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2010 CMHypno