25/12/2024
During the dark days of WW2, Corning Glassworks retooled one of their light bulb machines to make glass balls for Christmas. (No one was importing from Europe, during the war.) These machines made thousands of clear, colored, and striped ornaments for families on the Homefront. Since these came from light bulb machines, they got the nickname "Shiny-Brite," and many families actually called their decorations ornament "bulbs."These were not silvered on the inside because metals of all kinds were hard to come by, being used for the war effort. Even the caps were paper! Displayed on white birch branches, as you see here, these antique confections look like candy balloons!