Your oldest Christmas decoration?

I always feel sorry for my fairy with those pointy needles up her botty dress for three weeks at a time. She keeps smiling though.

A big sparkly papier mache bauble one of my children made in the infants, he's 30 soon so that makes the tree decoration mid twenties or so.

Nothing as old as some of the decorations mentioned here but I still have some that we bought when we first married, so they're 45+ years old.

There's a glass bell, with a tiny clapper inside, in silver & turquoise shades. Also a glass church, with a snowy roof. I still love a tiny bauble in pale green with a frosty design outlined in it. I remember buying that, in a department store when my son was in his coach built pram.

They truly bring me joy each year when I get them out. ❤️

I have a little Christmas tree about 4ins high in a little red pot that my mother bought in Woolworths when she was a little girl so that would be about 1935.
I saw one mentioned on an antique programme a few years ago and I think it cost just a few pence at the time which Mum would have had to save up to buy.
It means a lot to me so really hope it will stay in the family.

Three Santas and 3 bells from the early 1950's, plus almost every other tree decoration made or bought since the early 1970's when I had my own house for the first time. I had a smaller tree last year and it could hardly be seen for stuff.I do think about downsizing.....

I've only a funny story ... One year while decorating the tree I held up an ornament and said to my son who was helping me, "This one is my favorite" and no sooner did the words leave my lips it slipped out of my hand and smashed on the floor- We looked at each other and both wound up on the floor laughing ..

I have one bauble left from the first Christmas after we married, 1963. I don`t put it on the tree anymore, in case it gets broken. Our kitten at the time had a beano every day, tapping the baubles till they flew off, always managing to land on the stone flagged border around the carpet!

I have a plastic bell which was hung on my very first Christmas tree. My parents must have hung it on the first tree they had after they were married in 1950.
That makes it 69.

Not sure about decorations, but my tree came from Woolworths.... probably c1990!!

Several baubles that my mum bought sometime in the 1950's or late 1940's. Plus a coneshaped bedraggled father christmas my daughter made in 1986!!

So many of you have ancient and cherished decorations, whether beautiful or not. Lovely to read about them.

I do wish I'd kept the first Christmas tree we had after we were married. We were living in the Middle East and at the time it was often very hard to get even (Western style) basics. (No problem in the souk if you wanted a camel stick, frankincense or dried sardines, though.)

So when I heard that a new, proper shop had opened, I went off with a friend, taking my little car down a maze of dirt roads to try to find it.

Oh, joy - they actually had Christmas trees! Albeit the most artificial-looking ones imaginable, straight, stiff branches made of green and silver tinsel that you bent out - it came in a box with a set of lights and a few baubles.

It was no more than about three feet high but I was so happy with that tree - hardly anyone else on our compound had one, so many of the children would come in to admire it.
I chucked it some years ago and still regret it! Still have one or two of the baubles though.

By the time we left that country many years later you could actually order a real Christmas tree from the supermarket. Huge changes indeed.

Witzend Your story is one of the nicest on this thread - and there is stiff competition.

Thank you, MOnica.

I have a glass bell that hung on the Christmas trees in my maternal grandmother's childhood home and a glass cello we found among my other grandmother's things after her death. Daddy said it hung on all the Christmas trees he could remember as a child.

I treasure both of these and a set of rather grubby paper angels that date back to the first Christmases I can remember.

I have a string of twelve Disney tree lights that I think my grandparents bought in the late '30s.
We haven't actually used them for over 30 years (and wouldn't dare switch them on now, even if we still had an adaptor for the two-pin plug), but I still get them out to look at each Christmas.

I did have quite a few tree decorations from the same era, but only two have survived and still go on our tree every year - a clip-on bird and a silver-coloured bell, both very fragile.

What lovely posts to read.

Slightly different but do we all remember our parents (I’m 65y) putting up Christmas decorations in the room? Paper streamers (opened like a concertina) from the 4 corners into the centre (probably the ‘big light’ as Peter Kay would say!) and balloons in the corners?

And paper Chinese lanterns with red tassels for the tree that fit over the coloured (none of that contemporary ‘white lights’ nonsense thank you very much in 1962) tree lights? They actually looked very pretty.

Or was that us haha!

Yes, I remember those 'concertina' streamers - we had several, going from all four corners to the centre light!

And I still have - somewhere - the original first set of tree lights we ever had - probably in the late 50s - much bigger bulbs than later ones. Only about 12 - we always had a very little tree. But it was very exciting to have lights at all.

I did change the plug from the old two round pins one, but they weren't working. Goodness knows where I'd find any replacement bulbs now.

Those concertina decorations were very effective, Urmstongran. And the twirly dangly ones made of stiff foil (coloured on one side, silver on the other) that used to hang from the mantelpiece and spin round in the heat rising from the fire.

And what was that stuff mum used to put on last? Over the top of everything else on the tree? Over the tinsel etc. Sounded like. ...etta I think. Thin streamers. Hung from the top and cascaded down?

Anyone remember?

Think it began with an ‘m’

Oh gosh, this is like a game of Christmas charades now!
?

Lametta!

I think my mum used to put some blobs of cottonwool on the branches as well. It's a wonder so many of us got to the age we are when our houses were such fire hazards!

Yay! Thank you Maggiemaybe

Lametta. Of course. It was (to me) a bit OTT but mum loved it!

Your post rosecarmel One year while decorating the tree I held up an ornament and said to my son who was helping me, "This one is my favorite" and no sooner did the words leave my lips it slipped out of my hand and smashed on the floor- We looked at each other and both wound up on the floor laughing .. really made me laugh!

What nice stories here! I do have some 60's teardrop shaped glass ornaments from my childhood. My sister was nice enough to divvy up the box of ornaments once my Mum had passed away, and sent a few to me. It is nice to see them when they go on my tree.

I also have a hand made small angel for the top of the tree that my daughter and I made when she was small. So I imagine it is around 25 yrs old. It was seen as a temporary measure when it was done, but I cherish it, and up she goes every year. I wouldn't have the heart to replace her with a store-bought tinsel star or angel.

I still love the look of lametta. Many years ago we had a ginger cat who, for some reason, adored eating the stuff. The children spotted him in the garden one snowy morning with a strand of sparkly silver hanging out of his bottom. So we had to remove it from all the lower branches which rather spoilt the effect. But the memory of it still makes us laugh.

Haven't used tinsel for ages but I love lametta! We call it icicles and I still use it - if I can get any. It shivers and catches the light.
Thanks for reminding me that I must try to find some online for this year.