Merry Christmas!

Dear Blogging Friends,

For the past couple of years, I've been collecting antique glass ornaments that are all silver or gold pine cones. Here's a close-up of this year's tree — wouldn't it be interesting to know the stories these old ornaments could tell!?

I wish you a Merry Christmas!

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A Victorian Christmas Tree

This year, I decided to create my version of a Victorian Christmas tree. You may remember that last year I posted about the fun of decorating a tree with travel souvenirs, here. Then, as the holiday season drew to a close, I walked into an antique store comprised of many dealers and noticed — going from stall to stall —  that there were lots of antique glass pine cone ornaments. I couldn't resist starting another collection, above!

I decided to complement the antique ornaments with new colored ones, and to alternate those colors from year to year.

If that isn't enough, I'll add colored ribbon to match the complementary color scheme and . . .

. . . strands of pearls or perhaps colored beads.

And here's the finished tree (with room for the glass pine cone collection to grow).

Christmas 1915

My grandfather Ruffner worked for the Eastman Kodak Company during its early days, so my father's childhood was as well documented as one's family life might have been decades later. (In fact we have indoor home movies from the 1920s.)

Here's an image of my father and grandmother looking at his first Christmas tree, in 1915. He was almost a year old. The lights are lit candles, and my father — who remembered later trees with candles — said that there was always a bucket of water nearby, and that the lit candle-viewing would last for only about a minute.

Here's a Christmas ornament from that very same long-ago tree. Every year it gets packed into a box of its own.

click to enlarge

Here's what my dad received as gifts in 1915. My grandfather made the wooden toy box, and then, rather than paint it, covered it with a tan wallpaper.

I hope you enjoyed this "Kodak moment!"

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An Evolving Taste in Christmas Ornaments

When I was growing up, my family had a fun Christmas tradition. Every year the five of us would go into town a day or so before we got our tree, and we'd each pick out one new Christmas ornament. Then each year as we decorated the tree, ornaments would call to mind the different places we had lived, and the different choices each family member had made.

Here's my choice for the year 1956 (I have of course catalogued all the ornaments). The next year I chose a snowman in similar style, but alas, he has not survived.

Here's my choice in 1959. It's a paper-maché ball made in West Germany. I find it rather alarming these days to see the same exact thing in antique stores!

1962 was a little different. I may have found a store-bought ornament, but I also made this one from a real egg. The gold florals are authentic die-cut scraps that came from a mail order place called the Brandon Company. It was a business that grew out of the discovery of a whole inventory of Victorian scraps in a barn! (I spent a lot of allowance money ordering from the Brandon Company.)

My ornament for 1976 was this replica of an antique grape cluster (or is it a pine cone?). It's more than 25 years old by now, so it might be an antique in its own right.

In 1979, I bought this delightful glass gyroscope at a favorite antique store in Pittsburgh. I'll be sharing more ornaments later in upcoming posts.
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