Christopher Radko Christmas Ornaments

Since 1985, the Christopher Radko Company has been making high-quality reproductions and re-imaginations of traditional European glass Christmas ornaments. The origin of the company was an unfortunate Christmas in the early 1980s, when Christopher Radko's family Christmas tree fell over. In an instant, more than 1,000 vintage mouth-blown glass ornaments were destroyed. Radko searched high and low looking for the same sort of old artisanal European ornaments, but nothing he found lived up to his standards. So, he decided to start his own ornament company, hiring a skilled Polish glass blower. By the time the company finally launched, Radko and his glass blower had created 60 different designs. By the mid-2010s, Christopher Radko Company had churned out more than 18 million glass Christmas ornaments, as well as snowglobes, ceramic cookie jars, tree skirts, and stockings. The company has also revived the Shiny-Brite brand, which made popular glass ornaments and Christmas lights in the 1940s and '50s. Employing artisans in Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, Radko designs range from bunches of grapes and others types of fruit to hundreds of different types of Santas. Unlike mass-produced ornaments, Radko's are hand-blown into custom molds, then hand painted in brightly colored lacquers.