Old world ornaments include a grouping of real-life replicas that continually found a space on the pine, green spruce, Everest Fir, Alpine Balsam Fir, Dunhill, or Fraser Fir tree at Christmas time. Most of these ornaments will have been hand blown glass and painted with glitters, paints and lacquers for coloring and sparkle.
Simple day-to-day elements were created to decorate the tree. Things like commemorative ornaments with dates and congratulatory statements for birthdates, marriage anniversaries, etc. Replicas of animals, fruit, nuts, gingerbread houses, angels, stars. baby Jesus, and “Baby’s First Christmas”.
Glass balls topped the list in popularity for ornaments. There were small ones, medium and large with every imaginable type of design. Some were transparent balls and revealed activity within (resembling snow globes), others were translucent and made to reflect images off the surface with silver paint, and still others were simple sold toned balls that looked beautiful with the lights of the tree reflecting off their surfaces.