Boy Hanging a Striped Christmas Ornament

The boy has tousled hair, big shining eyes and a cozy sweater with ribbed cuffs and a ribbed waistband. He holds the hanger carefully between his fingers, and the round bauble, decorated with horizontal stripes, dangles from a thin hook. The fir branches are drawn with soft, feathery edges, and a bead garland drapes across them beside other round ornaments. Next to his knees stands an open cardboard box holding three more baubles, one of them trimmed with a wavy line. The large shapes and bold outlines make this festive scene easy for younger children to color.

How Christmas Trees and Glass Baubles Began

Bringing a decorated evergreen tree indoors is an old German custom. A description from Strasbourg in 1605 already mentions fir trees hung with paper roses, apples and sugar treats. Glass baubles came later: glassblowers in the small town of Lauscha, in the Thuringian Forest, began making glass ornaments in the mid-19th century, and their work was soon sold far beyond Germany.

The custom spread quickly in Britain after 1848, when a popular newspaper engraving showed Queen Victoria and Prince Albert with their children around a decorated tree. Within a few decades, Christmas trees had become common in homes across Europe and North America.