Christmas guide
Kugel ornaments: what they are and how to hang them
Round, weighty-looking, and capped in metal. The kugel is one of the oldest shapes of glass Christmas ornament. Here is its history, and how to use the kugel-style pieces we carry.
Kugel ornaments are round glass balls with a decorative cap, in the style of the heavy glass ornaments first blown in Germany in the 1800s. Kugel is German for ball.
What is a kugel ornament?
The kugel comes from Lauscha, a glassmaking town in Thuringia, Germany, where glassworks go back to the late 1500s. In the 1800s, Lauscha glassblowers made thick-walled glass balls, silvered inside so they shone. Sources differ on the decade they began, with most placing it between the 1820s and the 1850s. The early ones were heavy enough that many hung from ceilings or in windows rather than on a tree.
A cap, often brass, sealed the silvered lining and gave the ball something to hang by. By the late 1840s Lauscha was also making glass ornaments for the tree itself, and by the 1870s its ornaments were going to Britain, then America. Collectors still use the word kugel for those early, heavy, capped balls, and good ones are prized.
Ours are new ornaments made in the kugel style, not antiques. Most are listed as glass.
Choosing size, finish, and color
Size. Ours run from 2 to 6 inches. Two- and three-inch kugels hang anywhere. At four inches they start to read from across a room. Five and six inches are statement pieces for a bowl, a window, or a strong inner branch.
Finish. The smooth round ball is the classic. Ribbed kugels catch light along their ridges. There are also filigree, crackle, geometric, and printed-leaf finishes, and kugels with a gold stripe or a gold snowflake.
Color. Silver, gold, and green are among the colors collectors see most in old kugels. Ours come in silver, smoke, champagne, bronze, olive and pine green, red, white, beige, salmon, and matte black.
Silver kugels in the shop now
How to hang and style kugels
Pick a palette first. Kugels are strong shapes, so color does the editing. Silver, white, and champagne together are calm and bright. Olive, pine green, and bronze lean toward our Quiet Greenery palette. Matte black with gold-striped kugels suits a room already working in soft black and warm wood, our Greige Calm. Every color at once turns the tree back into a sample box.
Work in three sizes. On a tree, hang the largest deep inside, near the trunk, where branches are strong and the shine reads as depth. Put the middle sizes midway out and the small ones toward the tips.
Fill a bowl instead of a tree. A wide bowl of kugels on a table you already use is the simplest way to show them. It is where the Christmas house starts: glass in a bowl, and the tree can wait.
Hang them where the old ones hung. Early kugels went in windows and from ceilings. One large kugel on a ribbon in a window, or three at different lengths from a light fixture, is a quiet nod to that.
Tuck them into greenery. A few small kugels set into a group of bottle brush trees or along a garland finish a mantel without hanging a single branch.
Green kugels
Care and storage
Hang heavier kugels on a wire hook closed into a loop, or on a ribbon, so they can’t slide off a branch. Check that the cap is seated before you hang one. Dust with a soft, dry cloth, and keep water out from under the cap. To store them, wrap each kugel in tissue with its cap on, pack them in a divided box with the heaviest at the bottom, and keep the box somewhere dry.
Common questions
What does kugel mean?
It is German for ball or sphere. For ornaments, it means a round glass ball with a decorative cap, in the style of the early pieces from Lauscha.
Why were old kugels so heavy?
The glass was thick. Early kugels had heavier walls than the thinner blown ornaments that came later, which is why many hung from ceilings instead of branches.
Are your kugels antique or made in Germany?
They are new ornaments made in the kugel style, not antiques, and we don’t claim a country of origin that their listings don’t state. Antique kugels are found through antiques dealers and auction houses.
How many do I need?
Fewer than you think. Kugels are bold, so a few large ones carry a tree alongside the ornaments you already have. A bowl or a window needs only three to five.
Keep reading
Kugels sit well with small trees and old-style figures. Read our guides to bottle brush trees and belsnickle Santas, see how we choose the daily ten, or browse all of our room stories. The kugels themselves hang with the Christmas ornaments.
Kugels hang with the ornaments.