Ornament Traditions

Chirstmas at the Hunter House is upon us again. The house is busy with people figuring out ways to decorate the house to everyone's delight. Our decorations are unique since we always focus on the Victorian Era. This year is no different. Many people don't realize that a lot of our Christmas traditions come from Germany. As you may know already, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert. Albert was from Germany and brought many of the Christmas traditions with him when he came to England. To name just a few: the Christmas tree, the carol Silent Night, and Nutcrackers. This year we have decided to make our decorations all about German traditions. To kick things off, we will be having a German Christmas market in our house. This will be Saturday and Sunday, November 20-21. There will be local vendors selling their wares and German goodies available. One of the items available at the market, will be genuine Olde World Glass Ornamaents.

Glass ornaments are one of the biggest traditions of Germany. Blown glass ornaments have been made in Germany since the 1500s. It was in the Victorian Era in 1870 when they were first exported to Britian. America also imported German blown glass ornaments after F.W. Woolworth discovered them on a trip to Germany in 1880. In those days, the inside of the glass ornaments were made to look silvery by using either mercury or lead. As people discovered that mercury and lead were not healthy to use, they changed the inside to be a combination of silver nitrate & sugar water to protect the makers and the owners of the ornaments. The majority of glass ornament makers lived in an area in Germany called Lauscha.

The glass makers in Lauscha improved their craft for many generations, but the industry became in danger of becoming obsolete after World War II. Once the war was over, the Allied Forces divided Germany amongst themselves. Each country gaining power and control over one section of Germany. Lauscha is in East Germany, which became controlled by the Soviet Union. The Soviets believed that the traditions of Germany needed to be wiped out in order to ensure that they had learned their lesson after the War. Glass Blowing was one of many past times the Soviets sought to destory. The molds that were used to make the ornaments for generations were found and destroyed. Many in Lauscha hid the glass molds and still others that were trying to keep their family heritage escaped to Neustadt (a city in American occupied Germany).

Today, there remains a popular German glass company that still makes ornaments. The company is called Inge-glas ornaments or is often referred to as Glas Inge. It is named for a lady who remained in Lauscha Germany and managed to save nearly all of the glass molds her family had for generations before her. When her family escaped Lauscha and went to Neustadt, she stayed behind. She broke all of the glass molds she had in half. She would send a box full of one half of each mold to her grandson, which a note telling him they were toys. When the Soviets looked through her mail, they only saw her sending broken molds to her grandson to play with. Later, she would send the second half of each mold in the same manner. Her son and grandson would them put the molds back together. In this way, she helped save the German glass making tradition. Her son and grandson started making ornaments again and selling them both in Germany and abroad. Neustadt became the new center for German glass blowing.

If you have an Inge-Glas ornament, it may be marked with a star crown. This emblem was stamped on every ornament they made until 2000. In 2000, they set up distribution sites in other countries besides Germany and did not keep the same emblem. Today, there is not an emblem on any of their ornaments. However, they remain a collector's item. Each year a new ornament is created to represent the traditions of today.