this weekend, i pulled out my favorite and most treasured christmas ornaments. about ten years ago, i was lucky enough to pick up this box of shiny brite ornaments at a garage sale for 15 cents. just one of those rare finds when you know you love them, but don't really know much about them. here is what i found out

By 1940 Corning was making about 300,000 ornaments a day, compared with the perhaps 600 for a skilled German glassblower, and sending them to other companies for decoration.The largest customer was Max Eckhardt who by now had established an All-American company known as Shiny Brite. Initially Shiny Brite Ornaments were lacquered by machine on the outside and then decorated by hand.
the following year the ornaments were silvered on the inside so they would remain “shiny bright” for longer periods, but WWII intervened and material shortages caused the company to decorate the clear glass balls with simple thin stripes in pastel colors which didn’t require as much metallic oxide pigment. Corning, moreover, was able to alter its machines to produce a greater variety of shapes and sizes of glass ball without using scarce war material.

i love christmas ornaments. they are tangible memories in a box.
what are your favorite ornaments?