Every year, people hang ornaments on their trees without giving much thought to where the tradition actually started. It's a nice one to know — especially if, like us, half your collection is glass.
Long before glass ornaments existed, German families decorated their Tannenbaum with what they had on hand: nuts, apples, dried fruit, candles, and paper. It was simple, seasonal, and a little precarious — an apple-laden tree doesn't exactly hold up for a month.
The shift to glass happened in a small town called Lauscha, in the Thuringia region of Germany, which had been a glassmaking hub since the late 1500s — known for drinkware, beads, and fine glasswork long before anyone thought to hang glass on a tree. In 1847, a glassmaker named Hans Greiner began blowing glass into ornament shapes, transforming that centuries-old craft tradition into something new. The technique spread through the region's family workshops, many of which are still operating today, generations later.
Glass ornaments made their way to the United States in 1880, when a traveling German salesman brought a case of them to a store owner named Frank Woolworth. Woolworth was skeptical at first — he reportedly thought they were too fragile and too expensive to sell. He was wrong. They sold out almost immediately, and within a few years, Woolworth was importing them by the thousands, helping turn glass ornaments into a genuine American Christmas tradition.
What's remarkable is how little the actual process has changed. Glass is still mouth-blown into carved molds, silvered on the inside for shine, and hand-painted in a series of careful steps — sometimes 40 or more per ornament, depending on the design. It's slow, skilled work, which is part of why a well-made glass ornament feels different in your hand than a mass-produced one. You're holding a version of a 175-year-old process.
We carry a mix of true German-made glass ornaments alongside pieces from Old World Christmas, a brand built on reviving that same Lauscha-born tradition, and playful, modern designs from Cody Foster & Co. that put a wink on the classic technique. It's a nice thing to think about the next time you're unwrapping one for your tree: you're not just decorating — you're continuing something that started nearly two centuries ago, in a small German town, with a glassblower who had an idea.
Shop our 2026 Holiday Collection launching September 15th, 2026
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