Customer Reviews

Deck the Halls: Treasures of Christmas Past

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Patricia Breen ornament collectors will recognize the author's name. Bob Merck owns the Historical Christmas Barn in Connecticut, a longtime Patricia Breen retailer. Bob's brother, Tim Merck, owns Old World Christmas, a major glass ornament manufacturer. One can almost picture what Christmases in the Merck household must have been like!

Antique ornament collectors will recognize Merck as a long time member of the Golden Glow of Christmas Past, an international Christmas collectors' organization. Deck the Halls illustrates pieces from Merck's renowned collection -- German belsnickles, candy containers, rare German figural ornaments, kugels, Dresdens and chromolithograph paper decorations. In fact, there are over 350 full color illustrations, including the author's massive Christmas tree, laden with precious antique ornaments.

Originally published in 1992 this book still holds its charm, though the design now looks a little dated, still I doubt you'll find another book that captures the feel of festive season decorations as good as this. Several books, primarily designed for collectors, cover the subject but I've found from experience that they look very amateurish with plenty of photos of decorations snapped on a kitchen table and then just tipped into the pages. Fortunately this book does its best to make all this Christmas material look interesting.

The three chapters cover Santa, tree decorations and Christmas games with the material from decades ago. I thought the loveliest items were printed cards and calendars, some of these were used as advertising freebies, two on page thirty-four are the fold-out variety and they look just stunning with their exterior snow scenes. Two cards on page twenty-nine are a similar three-dimensional format which open to delightful winter tableaus with a prominent Santa. The tree decorations show an amazing amount of ingenuity in creating complex shapes out of very thin glass and then probably hand painted. Woolworth discovered, before 1900, beautiful German made glass tree ornaments and imported them to the US and the author suggests that these inexpensive decorations contributed to the company's success.

I've looked through this book plenty of times over the years and it still fascinates. If you are looking for a memory jogger for more recent times try Susan Waggoner's: Christmas Memories: Gifts, Activities, Fads, and Fancies, 1920s-1960s, the sub-title says it perfectly.

***SEE INSIDE THE BOOK by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

The best Christmas book, bar none. Mr Merck did a great job of compiling information on wonderful Christmas ornaments!