Pane Pain

I do not have any of the cherished ornaments from my early childhood. I remember some of them and how really pretty I thought they were. But they didn't get lost in a fire or broken in a move, they fell off the window. WHAT?

It was 1952, we lived in a house with an enormous picture window. It was nearly ceiling to floor. The multiple layered draperies were so heavy they had chains in the hem to make them hang straight. It was decided that instead of a tree, the window would be decorated. It was blocked off to look like multiple panes. I don't know how many 'panes' there were. The illusion was created with black hockey tape. Each square was wisped with artificial snow to make it look like a mini drift. The window was surrounded with lights on the inside and the outside. Both of course, were out door lights because if one went out, the rest stayed lit. Mother hung the old glass balls in each 'pane', using a narrow yellow tape strung threw the wire on the top of the ball. It took a lot of time, a lot of measuring, and when finished, it was classic! OOOOO AAAAA.

We were not allowed to touch the window lest we scratch the drifts of snow. Bed time came early in those days before television;draperies were drawn for privacy. They trapped the cold night air from the room. And then..... We window became cold. The narrow yellow tape released and one could hear the crash and breaking of the balls as they hit the hard floor. Some were trapped on the edge of the window and would be saved when the draperies were opened in the morning.

Each morning mother would sweep up the carnage and replace them with a plastic ornament, heavier, of course. The key word is UNBREAKABLE! The sound is BOUNCE.

You may have already guessed the heavier balls did not adhere with the yellow tape either. By Christmas Eve, when the tree or window should be in all its splendor, the window's snow was scratched and the hockey tape was damaged because the ball hooks from the lime green plastic multi sided decorations had come to be hung into the hockey tape to keep them on the window.

The inside decorations didn't last until New Years. I suppose that since the window was already a wreck, Greg and I did our best to draw figures in the stencil with our finger nails. Although we signed our names to our art work, we denied doing it when Mother asked who was writing on the window.


As a child, if a window was frosty, or foggy, we loved to draw on it! I never realized how annoying it was until my own children wrote on the leaky window in the living room on 21st Street. Mother never understood the value of that palate; as a grown up I knew drawing equaled streaked windows.


We have not stenciled since. It was the only year we did a window instead of a tree. Those marvelous balls that took a dive and crashed are still in my memory. AH!, those shiny red, green, and blue ornaments that you could see your image in!
Would I ever do a big window? I would. BUT!!! I would tape the outside of the window and drift the corners OUTSIDE. I would hang the balls with fish line from the window molding at the top, using tacks.


I am hopeful you have child hood ornaments or at least memories of them.