Welcome Back.
Today’s little bit of History is brought to you via the art of Christmas Tree Lighting.
Back in the 1800’s when the first Christmas tree was presented with lights it went like this: melt a blob of candle wax onto a limb and then press the lit candle into the wax. (I expect the organization of official Fire Departments were made at about the same time.)
A brief period of metal clip-on candle holders came next and then it was little glass lantern-type candle holders – aka: the Fairy Light.
As you can see, these were pretty small. They came in lots of colors though most had this pretty diamond pattern. They also had wire twisted around the rims for hanging.
I have three lights in three different colors. The first is this one – a deep Christmas red, with an unusually smooth lip all around.
The second, my favorite, is the amethyst. Love, love, love this color! But notice the rim? It’s a bit rough, kind of chipped looking.
The final light is brown, it reminds me of root beer – yum. But check out the rim on this one, really chipped looking. As it turns out, this is the norm for these Antique Fairy Lights. This is the way the majority came out of the pressing so don’t think these are damaged goods here. It’s the red that’s the unusual one being so smooth.
But what IS unique is that all three of these Fairy Lights still have their original wire hangers – that’s very rare.
You can see more pictures of these at my shop Old Raven on Etsy – just click:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/745012318/victorian-glass-fairy-lights-set-of-3?ref=shop_home_active_1
Have you started decorating for Christmas yet? Do you go all out right after Thanksgiving or just sort of ease into it as the month counts down to the 25th? Whatever track you choose, I hope your Holidays are wonderful. – Kriss
P.S. I used battery operated tea lights for my photos, play it safe folks.
Old Raven Creates 