Christmas decorations from famous designers and famous companies

Passing the gallery

Leading headings: Elena Prytula

Magazine: N1 (57) 2002

Decorating a Christmas tree is the most fun and exciting activity on the eve of the New Year holiday, its same indispensable attribute as champagne or gifts. This action is repeated on the eve of the New Year around the world and enjoys the same success in children and adults. The New Year itself has long been turned into a holiday for the sake of the holiday, and the meaning and significance of the customs associated with decorating the Christmas tree with toys is almost forgotten today. But that is why we love the usual Christmas balls, snowflakes and stars - just for childhood memories, fabulousness and the magic of the New Year's night. Well-known designers and famous companies also do not stand aside from the widespread hobby of toys ... The ancient noble custom of decorating a Christmas tree for about two thousand years. As is known, the origin of this rite is associated with ideas about the magical power of trees. Our distant ancestors hung on the branches all kinds of offerings for those in whose power our life and well-being — gods, spirits. It was assumed that these gifts will be able to appease the powerful forces, which, as we know, are not only good, but also evil. If successful, people bestowed a rich harvest. Evergreen trees, including spruce, were emphasized: they symbolized the constant cycle of life and its endlessness. The set of gifts offered could, of course, be somewhat different - depending on local traditions or quirks, but in general the composition of symbolic objects remained unchanged. As for Europe, there the branches of the trees were decorated with apples - a symbol of fertility, eggs - a symbol of creation and the emerging life, or nuts, symbolizing the incomprehensibility of divine providence. It is easy to see that the echoes of these beliefs live in the forms of today's New Year's toys. It is said that the world community owes knowledge of all these subtleties to royal blood from Germany: it is believed that the first Christmas tree was decorated there in the 16th century. And in the 17th century, German princesses introduced the English and French to this custom. By the way, in Russia, New Year trees began to dress up not so long ago - from the 30s of the XIX century. True, then they were put in their homes only St. Petersburg Germans. Even earlier - by decree of Peter I - they began to decorate houses with spruce, pine and juniper branches. From the middle of the XIX century, the beauties of the Christmas tree began to be installed in the capital squares, and by the end of the century they turned into the main attribute of home holidays. Of course, the ancient magical cults are in the past. But take a closer look at these Christmas-tree decorations! Do not you think that they are not only very beautiful, but also “useful” - for us, practical and rational in everything?