Christmas Ornaments
Decorating your house and the Christmas tree with Christmas ornaments is one of the most enjoyable pastimes that you or your family can indulge in during the holiday season. Generally, the Christmas tree is put up and decorated during the second or third week of December. Most householders do not buy ornaments every year; instead they use the same things year after year. In fact in many families ornaments have taken on the mantle of heirlooms with some decorations having been in the same family for generations.
History and folklore
The history of decorating the house and tree with ornaments can be traced back to the 1500s. It is believed that the first people to use decorations to adorn their Christmas tree were Germans. Earlier Paradise trees (as they were called then) were decked up and kept in churches. Presently, they found their way into homes, where they were adorned with small white wafers, and later with small pastries cut into stars, angels, hearts and flowers. Still later fir trees began to be decorated with roses because roses were associated with the Virgin Mary. To begin with trees were kept in the yards of homes but by the 1600s, the tradition of bringing Christmas trees indoors and decorating them with paper roses, wafers, nuts, lighted candles, and sweets was born. Much later adornments such as painted eggshells, cookies, and candies also began to be used to decorate Christmas trees.
Christmas trees were first brought to America in the 1700s by the Hessians - German mercenaries - fighting in the Revolutionary War. At that time the ornaments were chiefly German hand-cast lead and hand-blown glass decorations. Later the decorations became more sophisticated as well as expensive. Silk and wool thread and also spun glass was used to fashion them while tinsel was used on fancy flower baskets, vases, air balloons and egg zeppelins.
Nowadays
Now Christmas ornaments and their production has become a multi-million dollar industry and many players have entered the market. China and Japan in the Far East provide the stiffest competition to the traditional Christmas ornament manufacturing nations.