The goal of our website is to assist the consumer in finding a Christmas tree grown by an American grower. Our purpose is to contribute to public education, and to directly assist those involved in developing the renewable resources of the United States.  Forestry conservation and sustainability efforts, the history of the Christmas tree itself, and locations where one can buy a Christmas tree form our primary focus.  We've discussed the effort that goes into growing trees on farms and bringing them fresh to market each year.  On this page, we discuss all that goes on in the background of bringing the beautiful Christmas ornaments and decorations for sale each year to stores across the Country.

CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS AND DECORATIONS - A SHORT HISTORY

Christmas tree ornaments are made out of all sorts of materials these days.  The particular style of tree ornament that isn't easily made by most people is the blown glass Christmas tree ornament.  In this section, we'll discuss the origins of making decorations from glass, and how that skill evolved to be applied to making ornaments for the Christmas tree.

The earliest evidence we have of glass blowing was found in a Jewish ritual bath, pieces of glass pipe and small vases that had been created and then discarded.  The various pieces demonstrate a conceptual understanding of blowing techniques.  These pieces are attributed to the Phoenicians around 50 BC. 

Scarcely 100 years later, the Roman Empire helped to develop and propagate the skill of blowing glass.  Ennion, a Phoenician, became a famous glass blower.  He developed a complicated system of molds and design.  In short, glass would be heated at the end of a tube.  A 2-piece mold would be moved into position to surround the nearly molten glass.  The glass blower would blow slowly into the tube, allowing the glass to expand inside the mold to form the shape created by the surfaces of the mold.  Once fully blown and before the glass cooled, the workers would remove the 2 sides of the mold.  The piece was cut off from the glass source, and then shaped with tongs along with edge where the glass had been cut.

The process has remained the same today.  A modern, still-living artist well known for his hand blown glass is Dale Chihuly.  Chihuly's work is stunning, and graces many modern art museums.  To see some of his pieces, visit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Chihuly

Today's Modern Blown Glass Tree Ornaments

While the process of making Christmas tree ornaments from glass is at least 2000 years old, most of today's tree ornament manufacturers like to think of their process as proprietary and in some way special.  After a fair amount of research, we discovered that the process is exactly the same from manufacturer to manufacturer.  Most of the secrecy is, in fact, an attempt to distinguish their ornaments from somebody else's.  We've come across silly phrases like, "only a few places in Europe that can make ornaments to our specifications", and "we sell only Polish ornaments because of the highest of qualities".  In the end, we visited over 30 factories on two continents and found only 2 differences: the quality of the paint--not the glass or silvering--and the painters varied.  In fact, we found that the consumer basically gets what they pay for.  Certainly, once you get above $50 you're paying for a name or a fancy box.  But, we did discover that ornaments in the $20-$50 range had more skilled ornament painters, with fewer paint errors.  Certainly, they deserve to earn more than people who can't paint very well.  After a fair amount of begging, Russell Rhodes ornaments agreed to let us take a number of production photos in their sample making department.  For mass production, you'd see everything you see here, multiplied times 100.  A sample making department creates one piece, or a few dozen pieces as artists' proofs.  Essentially, a few dozen are done to look for final changes, a small flaw in the design, or anything that needs to be tweaked before the steel mold is duplicated for larger scale production.

Christmas Tree Ornaments Manufacture Process

Glass tubes are mass manufactured by a glass company that specializes in tubes.  Glass tubes are used in medicine, medical labs and many other applications.  The tubes are purchased in various widths that best accommodate the width of the actual ornament to be blown.  We're going to show you the making of a glass tree ornament in the shape of a dog here.  The final tree ornament measures 3.8"W x 2.1"Deep.  Hence, the glass tube used to make this ornament measures just shy of 2" diameter.

A single long tube is selected by the glass blower.  From this 8-foot long tube, approximately 5 separate ornaments will be made.  The first step is to create 5 individual tube preparations.  In the photo on the left below, a blower passes the long tube through a special machine, creating smaller tubes with a handle on each end.  The machine presses the large tube so that a pipette is formed on each end.  The finished tubes that are ready for blowing are shown in the third photo:

When the blower is ready to create a Christmas tree ornament, he or she removes one end of the glass piece:

While the glass is still hot, the mold is prepared:

The glass blower places the glass with stick into the mold, closes the mold, and then blows into the still hot glass through the pipette:

Once the blower is satisfied that the tree ornament glass has been blown into all sides of the steel mold, the mold is opened and the glass tree ornament is removed:

The Christmas tree ornament has now been formed.  In many locations, the foregoing process is done exclusively by highly trained individuals who may have no idea how to paint an ornament.  Each task is broken down into its own area of expertise.  These ready-to-be-processed tree ornaments are often packed and shipped to another facility for finishing.  To see the rest of the process, click here: glass ornaments.