Christmas tree ornaments are as much part of Christmas as Santa Claus, Christmas cards and Christmas gifts. We cannot imagine this holiday without them. But where did these traditions come from? Most of the Christmas traditions came from central Europe, and were brought to America by the early settlers. The Christmas ornaments traveled from Germany, through England to America and gradually changed from apples to glass blown figurines.

The original German Christmas trees were adorned with food; apples, onions, nuts and candies were placed on a tree.

In the 19th century, glass ornaments were first made in Germany. In general, only men did the glassblowing, women silvered the glass balls and the children painted and turned them into beautiful glass Christmas ornaments.

When Prince Albert, from Germany, married Queen Victoria of England, he brought the tradition of tree decorating to England. Soon it became popular and all of England was decorating trees at Christmas.

Some of these Englishmen immigrated to North America and took their Christmas traditions with them. Christmas started to become a widely spread holiday in North America and as with everything made in this new country, the ornaments got larger and brighter.

F.W. Woolworth was the first North American merchant to sell glass ornaments in 1880. Within a decade he was selling $25 million worth of ornaments per year.

Nearly all hand blown glass ornaments were produced in Germany, until in 1925 Japan started to produce large numbers of glass Christmas ornaments for export.

When the Second World War broke out and European factories stopped making the Christmas ornaments, US manufacturers began making them. Corning used a machine designed for making light bulbs to produce more than 300,000 glass ornament balls per day.

Now, the American people spend billions of dollars yearly on Christmas ornaments. Glass Christmas ornaments come in all shapes, sizes and colors.