Where do Christmas ornaments come from? Ask the expert. He's back

Christmas ornaments don't grow on trees.

So where do they come from? The dollar store, one might answer.

Or — in the case of the exquisitely hand-crafted baubles made by HeARTfully Yours — from several dozen high-end boutiques that are carrying the new line of decorations from ace designer Christopher Radko.

"Each year when you unpack Christmas ornaments, it's like seeing old friends," said Radko, one of the best-known names in the field, who this year is making a triumphant return to ornament design after a 10-year absence.

Shiny red and green globes, glittery Santas — these are the ornaments most of us remember from our childhood.

Many were associated with the Shiny Brite brand — manufactured, during the 1940s and '50s, in such places as Hoboken, Irvington, North Bergen and West New York. In the 2000s, Radko revived the name, and began designing retro ornaments in that style. "They were the most popular brand," he said. "They were in every Five and Dime in the country."

But what he's really famous for are the elaborate pieces that are as ingenious, in their way, as FabergéEaster eggs. And as collectable.

The 250 new pieces in his HeARTfully Yours assortment are typical: Glass sea horses and nesting birds, snowmen riding polar bears, gilded butterflies and ornate frogs and nativities in a globe. Most retail in the $30 to $80 range — apiece — though some might go as high as $200.

"There's one that's called December 24 — it's this very classic, elegant Santa holding a golden Teddy bear and a shiny green bag of toys and gifts, and he's just beautiful," Radko said.

Another one, new for 2022, is a slender nutcracker, standing on top of a ball. "It's two ornaments in one," he said. "It's called Hampton Court. He's beautiful, he's one of my bestsellers."

Back to the source: Central Europe

Part of the secret of Radko's success is that he does know where glass ornaments come from.

They originally came — and the best ones, including his, still do — from central Europe.

To be sure, Radko dreams them up himself. He designs them here in the U.S. But it's in Germany, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine — yes, Ukraine — that the master craftsmen and -women bring them to life. Each one, Radko says, takes seven days to make by hand.

"I spend five weeks in Europe every year, at the workshops," said Radko, a Putnam County resident.

Store-bought Christmas decorations are, historically speaking, a new-ish development.

The Christmas tree itself is a late-breaking custom. They didn't become widely popular until 1850, when Queen Victoria introduced them to England. And it wasn't until 30 years later that anyone began to think of commercially-made ornaments for them.

At first, people made the bangles and baubles themselves. Charles Dickens, in 1850, described one early tree.

"Everywhere (it) sparkled and glittered with bright objects," he said. "There were teetotums, humming–tops, needle–cases, pen–wipers, smelling–bottles, conversation–cards, bouquet–holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts."

Folks would decorate their trees with anything handy. Jewelry, cameo frames, popcorn garlands, knives and forks — all can be seen dangling in old photos. One lucky prospector decorated his tree with gold nuggets.

But it was in 1880s Bohemia, in today's Czech Republic, that the glass Christmas tree ornament changed the game.

"Central Europe has had a glass-making tradition since the Romans taught the people in those areas how to make glass," Radko said.

Blown glass

Italy — most famously, Murano — had great furnaces where glassblowers could fashion heavy vases and figurines. But elsewhere, craftspeople were unable to heat the molten glass to thousands of degrees. On their smaller, cooler flames, they created a thinner glass. Christmas-ornament glass.

"It's blown from hollow tubes of glass," Radko said. "They use the Bunsen burner to close the bottom end. The tube itself becomes the ornament."

In Bohemia, since the 1830s, there had been a tradition of making glass costume jewelry. Glass beads and pearls were sewn into folk costumes and wedding gowns. Some of these tiny, jewel-sized ornaments also made their way onto Christmas trees.

As Czech artists fanned out across Europe, they came into contact with Thuringian toymakers. In Germany, toys were made from molds. Why, they said, couldn't the same thing be done with glass Christmas ornaments? "They said, why don't we make a mold, make them larger," Radko said. "They don't have to be beads."

These thin, light, hand-blown Christmas ornaments were starting to be seen around Europe in the 1880s, when — the story goes — F.W. Woolworth was on one of his buying trips. He brought some of the glass ornaments home for his store. In two days they had sold out.

"He was soon making regular trips to Germany and ordering fifteen hundred gross of ornaments at a time," Bill McKibben writes in his book "Hundred Dollar Holiday."

Made in America

That's how German Christmas ornaments conquered the world. Until the late 1930s, that is — when the world itself was in danger of being conquered. By Germany.

In 1937, importer Max Eckardt decided it might be prudent to develop an American alternative, in case the coming war cut off the market. His ornaments, in collaboration with Corning Glass, were designed to be made cheaply and easily, on already-existing lightbulb machines. Hence the brand name: Shiny Brite.

"They were machine-made," Radko said. "Then, in a rudimentary way, they would dip them in lacquer. The machines could spit out 500 ornaments an hour."

The work were farmed out to — among other places — several plants in New Jersey. Americans, to help the war effort, were conserving lightbulbs, buying less. Shiny Brite provided new revenue for the bulb factories.

"Christmas has always been a huge retail opportunity in this country," Radko said. "Santa sells everything. You slap Santa on a box, you're going to sell anything in it. The Shiny Brite box was designed with Santa shaking hands with Uncle Sam, so you had the best of both worlds. They were American-made. You don't want those nasty ones from Germany."

Those were the ornaments most Americans grew up with, in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s. Radko, born in Yonkers in 1960, grew up with them too.

And then one day in 1984 — the family had moved to Scarsdale by then — he broke them all.

It's a smash

"I wanted to decorate the tree myself," he recalled. He was grown up by then, and so was the family tree. Over 12 feet tall, in fact.

"I decorate this whole tree, and then the next morning the tree crashes," he remembered. "One of the legs to the stand broke under the weight. It shattered 95 percent of our family collection. It was a pretty loud shatter. Everyone came in. My grandmother said, 'What have you done? You've ruined Christmas forever!' "

A heavy guilt trip to lay on a young man, you say? Perhaps. But Radko thinks he knows why his grandmother was grieving.

"There was a story behind each ornament," he said. "This is the reindeer I had when I was 5. These snowmen were when your parents got married. This cat was from your great Uncle Max in Vienna. It was a like a family diary on the Christmas tree. When it fell over, she felt like she had lost a family album.

"Even today, people are very sentimental about their ornaments. They remember where they came from."

Guilt stricken, Radko began to haunt flea markets and garage sales, trying to find duplicates of the antique ornaments he had lost. That was the germ of his own business — which he built, starting in 1986, into a name that is known internationally.

Katharine Hepburn, Whoopi Goldberg, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Andy Warhol, Gregory Peck, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, and — go figure — Woody Allen are among the celebrities who have bought his glass balls and tree toppers. Princess Diana once wrote him a nice letter.

"Princess Diana was a collector," Radko said. "She got them at Harrods. She was looking to sharing the beauties of her Christmas tree with the boys."

Any resemblance is coincidental

Christopher Radko, by the way, is not to be confused with Christopher Radko.

There is a company by that name, which also produces Christmas ornaments. And no wonder — since the company was originally Radko's.

"Christopher Radko the brand, and Christopher Radko the human being, are two different things," he said. "They're not connected anymore."

In 2005, the company was sold, and two years later Radko left — with a severance package that included a non-compete clause. For 10 years, Radko was contractually obligated to stay out of the Christmas ornament business.

In August 2021 the clause expired — and since then, Radko has been raring to go. HeARTfully Yours is his welcome-back to the profession — and the season — he loves.

"I live and breathe Christmas," Radko said. "It's my passion. I'm dialed in. I'm the guy who gets the direct channel to the North Pole."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Christopher Radko Christmas ornaments are back