Who's that scampering through the tree? With its characteristic white cheek patches and the striking black longitudinal stripe on its yellow underside, the great tit is hard to confuse. In our latitudes, it can be found basically anywhere where trees and shrubs grow: in deciduous and mixed forests, in parks and gardens (where it is one of the most frequent guests). So why should this natural-looking great tit miss out on your Christmas tree? Lively and curious, as it is in the wild, it will also feel right at home among your festive decorations, bobbing cheerfully on its metal feathers. And as it is also a very sociable bird, it will certainly be ready to join the existing flock of birds in the Christmas tree.

The Lauscha glassblowers used to call the figurative glass ornaments, which were blown into two-part negative molds "before the lamp". Today, as then, the lamp is the gas burner, whose flame keeps the glass viscous and malleable. And the molds that are used are also the same as 100 or 150 years ago. They are usually made of ceramic and must be handled with care, because in order to preserve them - and not overheat them in use - the molds must be gently cooled down again at regular intervals. Thus, no more than 150 figures or ornaments can be blown in one go. Only the starting material is different than in the past, because instead of glass tubes drawn specifically for this purpose are now used prefabricated flasks of colorless soda-lime glass.

Animal figures and especially birds as allegories of human characteristics traditionally found their place on the Christmas tree. According to the narrative, it should be symbolically at least one male and one female bird that meet. Quite handily, however, the compact bird body is simply very well suited to being blown into molds. To one side of the glass bulb, the fine bird's beak can then be freely extended, and to the other, the tail feather can be attached. This almost always consisted of cut glass silk, only in the 20th century real bird feathers became fashionable.

Certain manufacturing steps are carried out by hand. Slight dimensional and color deviations may therefore occur.