German Christmas Oranment

My sister travels extensively and she always brings back some type of souvenir for each of us sisters. My favorite thing that she has given me is a German Christmas ornament. We are from German heritage and so Christmas has always been celebrated in a big way in my family. My mother made many German dishes during the holidays and she had a German Christmas ornament on each branch of the Christmas tree. These ornaments are hand blown and painted to look frosted. The German Christmas ornament that my sister gave me is a snowman that has on a black hat and black buttons. He has a round red nose and a painted mouth. All the details are hand painted. The ornaments are very light weight because of being hand blown glass.

My mother has carefully wrapped each of her ornaments each year. As each of us got married we were given a German Christmas ornament as a shower gift. She has done this for each of her children as well as each of her grandchildren. My mother is now eighty seven years old, but she is continuing this tradition by giving each of the great-grand children a German Christmas ornament at their baptism. She has laughed that the grandchildren need to stop having kids because she only has a few of the original decorations left. She had received a box of sixty ornaments from her father as a wedding gift. He had been to Germany to visit relatives shortly before her wedding and he had brought them back for her. Each year I wrap the ornament from my mother in tissue and place it in a special box by itself so that it does not get broken. The ornament is over sixty five years old. The factory where the original ornaments were crafted is still in operation. I hope that some day I will get a chance to visit it. My sister bought a book when she was there that lists all the ornaments that were ever made. My mom’s collection contained most of them.