Kugels

European Art glass balls for holiday decoration are still commonly referred to in Austria and Germany as Kugels. Kugels range in shape and styles, according to the artist that made them and the season they are displayed. It is quite common to display egg shaped kugels at Easter and Heart shapes at Valentines day. Quality kugels are hand blown or mouth blown art glass. Most are blown into an apple wood mold to retain shape and consistency. Some artists free blow their kugel designs, thus ending up in an irregular shape. Air bubbles are common, and expected by the collector.

You can read more about antique kugels at http://www.goldenglow.org/kugels.htm.

More info and 40 items which are very pricey-http://www.ornament.ch/rubrik.php?rubnum=BK

The two images below are from my favorite...Martha Stewart Holidays.
Timeless Ornaments:Antique Kugels.  More info on kugels also.

http://www.hometraditions.com/antique-christmas-in-missouri.shtml

These antique ornaments range in price anywhere from $40 to $1,000 depending on their size and shape. Lovely ornaments from Christmas past.

Largest Gingerbread City in Bergen, Norway

In my previous post on gingerbread houses, I mentioned about the largest gingerbread city in Bergen, Norway. Assa, from Nissas Juleblogg sent me this link The-Worlds-largest-Ginger-snap-City. When I went to the website and saw the picture of the gingerbread city, which is free for children under the age of 12 to make their own house with the help of their parents, I was amazed in how much work must have gone into making this large miniature city! It's so beautiful. I would enjoy seeing this!  I went looking for images of it and found these on Google. Here are a few:

I also found a video on You Tube:



Hope you enjoyed watching. Have a great week!

Gingerbread Houses

This is one of 26 beautiful Gingerbread Houses you can view in a photo gallery at Martha Stewart's Website. I can't imagine the time that goes into making one! Very creative!

The harder German-style Gingerbread is often used to build gingerbread houses similar to the "witch's house" encountered by Hansel and Gretel. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations, often built by children with the help of their parents.
Since 1991, the people of Bergen, Norway, have built a city of gingerbread houses each year before Christmas. Named Pepperkakebyen (Norwegian for "gingerbread city"), it is claimed to be the world's largest such city. It's free for every child under the age of 12 to make their own house with the help of their parents. In 2009, the people of Bergen were shocked when the gingerbread city was destroyed in an act of vandalism.
Another type of model-making with gingerbread uses a boiled dough that can be molded like clay to form inedible statuettes or other decorations. Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs.
A significant form of popular art in Europe, major centers of gingerbread mold carvings included Lyon, Nürnberg, Pest, Prague, Pardubice, Pulsnitz, Ulm, and Toruń. Gingerbread molds often displayed the "news", showing carved portraits of new kings, emperors, and queens, for example. Substantial mold collections are held at the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Poland and the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany.

http://www.bhg.com,  Victorian Gingerbread House

http://www.bhg.com, Noah's Gingerbread Ark

You can read more about the different varieties and the history of gingerbread at Wikipedia. You can also see a video on building a gingerbread house HERE. Read about the largest gingerbread city in Bergen, Norway HERE.

More on Antique Christmas Stands

I decided to check out more antique christmas tree stands and found a few Google Images. I love to look at the old tree stands. It's just nostalgic! If you missed my very first post on Christmas tree stands you can read about it Here.

This is a vintage 1950's Coloramic Christmas tree stand Snowman lithography, boxed, that sold for $99.00 at Vintage Toys.  It's beautiful!

This beauty was found at Khlmolds. There are several other beautiful cast iron or poured metal tree stands here and ways to use them.

Now I really don't know that this one is an antique, but I just thought it was beautiful! It too is made of cast iron and I found it at  The Christmas Cabin LTD.

Another cast iron tree stand found at Christmas in the Country. There are four pages of vintage Christmas items for sale at this website. http://www.gonecountryantiques.com/

This is an antique one being sold on Ebay for $50.00. Found it Here. Love the poinsettia design.

I think someone brought this one to my attention in my other post on antique Christmas tree stands. I can't say that I like it, but it is rare. The hole for a tree trunk doesn't look very big, so maybe it could have been used for say...one of those aluminum foil Christmas trees to light them up and make them shiny and reflective...  It sold for $20.49 on Ebay.  I looked up the comment on my other post on tree stands and the person who commented and his tree stand that is just like this one...only his looks like it's in much better shape...can be found on Blog Utopia. His was found on Craigslist.

I really love this one!! Vintage 1950's. Found at Flickr. and Google Images.

Christmas Holiday Window Painting by Kim Cooper

Kim Cooper, the world's greatest window artist, demonstrates a holiday snowman character in Las Vegas, NV. at Budget Suites on Thanksgiving Day in "2009." She made this snowman come to life. What a gift to have! She's been painting windows for twenty years and uses Dayglo paints.



Kim will also paint on static window cling and ship directly to you for $49.00.

Radio City Hall's Rockettes-March of the Wooden Soldiers

My husband and I watched this a few years ago and I loved their Christmas show! I was very impressed with the march of the wooden soldiers.

Image from http://www.nj.com


A line of wooden soldiers is shot by a cannon and blown over. They fell like dominoes! What a great performance!

Image from http://www.naplesnews.com/


Thought I would put the video here also just in case you might want to watch it. Have a good one!



The cannon comes in about two minutes into the video.

The Rockettes are a well-known precision dance company performing out of the Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, New York City. During the Christmas season, the Rockettes have performed five shows a day, seven days a week, for 75 years. Perhaps their best-known routine is an eye-high leg kick in perfect unison in a chorus line, which they include at the end of every performance.

Image from http://365thingsaustin.com

The Radio City Christmas Spectacular is performed annually at Radio City Music Hall and in numerous other American and Canadian cities by a touring company of Rockettes. It is one of the most-watched live shows in the United States, with over 2 million viewers per year. The Rockettes perform annually at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (since 1957) and the America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit. The NBC Rockefeller Center Tree-Lighting Ceremony also traditionally includes a performance by the dance troupe.

Image from http://www.nelsoncountylife.com

Related articles

• What to Do in New York City on Thanksgiving (homeandgardenideas.com)
• New Dates to Dance with the Radio City Rockettes at a Macy's Near You! (prweb.com)

German Couple-Volker and Christa Kraft's Outdoor Easter Egg Tree

I received this from a friend of mine in an email and wanted to share it with you. The Easter egg tree is glorious!

A feast for the Easter Bunny: German couple decorate their garden tree with 10,000 painted eggs

Easter comes but once a year - but one couple have turned it into a lifetime's project.

German pensioners Volker and Christa Kraft have decorated the tree in their back garden in Saalfeld for Easter for more than 40 years.

The tree now drips with more than 9,800 colourful Easter eggs, painted with pastoral scenes and religious icons.

Volker Kraft adds to the 9,800 Easter eggs hanging from the tree in garden of the home he shares with his wife Christa

Each egg must be painstakingly emptied of yolk and whites, to ensure it will not go bad, before they can be hand painted and hung out for all to see.

The easiest way is to pierce two holes in each end of the egg with a hat-pin, then blow out the contents through a straw.

The better equipped can use a syringe pushed through just one hole to extract the gooey gubbins. But be cautious when handling raw eggs - they may carry salmonella.

Symbol of life: Carefully packed and intricately decorated Easter eggs lie waiting to be hung from the Krafts' tree

The egg is a pagan symbol of rebirth, widely used in spring festivals before its adoption by early Christians as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus.

For followers of Christianity they are symbolic of Christ rising from his tomb two days after his death on the cross.

In ancient times, the Zoroastrians painted eggs for Nowrooz, their New Year celebration, which falls on the spring equinox.

Sculptures in the ruins of Persepolis, their capital, show people carrying eggs to their king for the occasion 2,500 years ago.

After their kids moved out of the house, it seemed the Easter Tree would finally catch a break, but grandsons arrived and the Krafts went back to decorating their giant tree. The number of Easter eggs hung by the tree’s branches grew every year,and in 2010 it reached an incredible 9,500 eggs. Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. Happy Easter!