Blown glass Christmas ornaments

Whenever I picture a Christmas tree in my mind's eye, it is a live, lush dark green fir, glittering from top to bottom with unique, hand -made, old fashioned blown glass ornaments. This is the kind of tree I had as a child and the only kind of tree that symbolizes Christmas for me.

There is no question that mass-produced sets of color coordinated, matching Christmas ornaments made out of cheap plastic, or more expensive but still uniform looking acrylic or fabric are practical, economical and very well suited for quickly and efficiently decorating a whole tree, getting the job over with and enjoying it for the rest of the holidays.

Handmade glass ornaments on the other hand are expensive, they have to be hand-picked one by one as they rarely come in sets, they are very delicate and not well suited to houses with very young children or pets. But Oh! what a wonder it is to unwrap each tiny, brightly colored, one of a kind work of art and watch it catching the light as it softly sways from the branches, sending a thousand multicolored reflections in the air!

Photo credited to Juliette Gilbert.

I love these Christmas balls! The set includes six, each one uniquely handpainted and decorated and they look fabulous as they softly catch and reflect the fairy lights!

Photo credit: Amazon

When I was a young girl, Christmas was magical! We would all set up the Christmas tree together and then my Mother and I would carefully take down the cardboard boxes of holiday decorations. We would carefully unpack each delicate glass ornament from its protective paper and hang it from a branch. As we worked our way from the top of the tree towards the bottom, my Mother would tell me the special story related to each one. The beautiful red and gold spun glass icicle had been passed down to her by her Great Grandmother. The spiky clear glass and gold snowflake had been a wedding gift from a beloved aunt. The blue, gold and silver glitter hand painted hummingbird had been a gift from her Mother, for my first Christmas. On and on and on the stories went, as each irreplaceable piece was reverently hung on the tree. After we had finished hanging the last precious bauble, we would put Christmas Carols on the record player (no CDs yet!!) and the whole family would gather in the living room around the sparkling tree, standing there in all its splendor, and would remember and share stories and jokes of past Christmas times.

This beautiful set of glass icicles consists of 13 pieces, in different shapes and length ranging from 5" to 9".Hanging from the branches they will gently catch they light and look exactly like real sparkling icicles!

As time went by, I lost track of most of these precious Christmas objects of my childhood. Some broke, some were kept by my Mother and still decorate her home every year among more modern and not nearly as precious holiday ornaments and a few were passed down to me.

While my children were young, I kept them safely tucked away in their old cardboard boxes and paper wrappings, while my family and I decorated our Christmas tree with shatterproof, fabric or acrylic balls and trinkets readily available online or in any decent holiday shop. A few years ago, as my children grew older and more appreciative of rare things, I decided to revive the Christmas tree of my childhood.

I took my precious blown glass ornaments out of their resting place, hung them on the tree and decided to buy a few unique ornaments every year to complete my collection.