The History of Christmas Ornaments

The tradition of decorating Christmas trees dates back to 16^th century Germany, when Germans decorated evergreen trees with apples to represent the forbidden fruit referenced in the Bible. Trees were also sometimes decorated with pastries shaped like angels, flowers, hearts, or stars along with wafers, paper streamers, berries, and early forms of tinsel that were made from real silver! The first person to put candles on a Christmas tree was Martin Luther, and the first glass ornaments were created by a glassblower named Hans Greiner. Greiner couldn’t afford apples to decorate his tree, so he decided to make his own glass versions instead! Christmas ornaments remained a mostly European tradition until the 1800s, when skeptical Americans finally embraced the tradition due to a large influx of German and English immigrants.