When Jo Ellen Krasnobrod was young, she and her family frequently flew in to Salt Lake City to visit her mother's family.
"We always watched for the spires of the Salt Lake Temple -- in those days you could see it; there weren't so many buildings around it. And to me, it meant coming home. Even though I was born and lived in California, it felt like I was coming home."So, it was only natural when Krasnobrod grew up to found a company, with her partner Peter Stickells, which designs and sells hand-blown glass Christmas ornament replicas of famous landmarks around the world, the Salt Lake Temple would be one of them.
That's the thing about Christmas ornaments, says Krasnobrod. They are so much more than just decorations. They help us remember; they evoke good feelings; they capture memories that can last more than one lifetime.
If you happen to be looking for memory-building ornaments with a Utah connection, there's a wide variety of options in addition to Krasnobrod's Landmark Creations.
For sports fans, for example, Steve Beard's Fanballzz kiosk at Valley Fair Mall offers round ball ornaments for University of Utah, Brigham Young University and Utah Jazz fans. The ornaments are made in Colorado and decorated with various logos to appeal to fan interest. So far, says Beard, they've sold in equal quantities -- as many Ute fans as Cougar fans and Jazz fans.
A walk around the ZCMI Center in downtown Salt Lake City reveals more possibilities:
Gold cut-metal temple ornaments of the Salt Lake, Jordan River and Bountiful LDS temples.
Large white globes for missionaries ("Called to Serve") and newlyweds ("For Time and Eternity").
Hand-made reindeer (or are they moose?) faces and gold pine-cone angels.
Evelyne Lofgran Nielsen and her family have been making and selling hand-painted wooden ornaments since 1984. The bird and animals ornaments are wholesaled all over the country, and now they have their own retail store, called Wilderness Woods, in the ZCMI Center. Nielsen, who lives in Springville, got into making ornaments after her husband died.
"I'd taken a tole painting class and started making some ornaments. I took them to Jackson Hole to some shops, and they told me what they really needed was a moose ornament. So, I went back, and with my daughter, designed a moose. They sold six dozen in two weeks -- and we've been at it ever since."
Because her husband had worked for the U.S. Forest Service, Nielsen (who has recently remarried) went to the national parks: the Tetons, Yellowstone. And the ornaments have been a huge hit. "We sell hundreds in Yellowstone; we have them in places like Dollywood and Disneyland. This year, my son designed a new line of animals on skis, and they've been popular at the ski resorts."
The ornaments, she says, have put her two sons through school.
"My youngest son is completing his residency in medical school at the U., and he still spends his spare time painting ornaments. It's been a great thing for us."
In addition to the Salt Lake Temple, Krasnobrod's company has also created an ornament patterned after the Utah State Capitol.
"That also has a connection to my mother," Krasnobrod said. "She always told us the story of when she was little and would go to the Capitol every Easter and roll Easter eggs down the grassy slopes."
The two Utah ornaments join a line of far-flung landmarks that includes such places as Boston's Faneuil Hall, Chicago's Water Tower, a New Orleans French Quarter building, the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, London's Big Ben and Tower Bridge, Paris' Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral, China's Temple of Heaven and more -- about 100 in all.
The ornaments are sold in places like Smithsonian museums, the New York Public Library, Gumps and Saks for prices ranging from around $30 to $45 (the Utah ornaments are available locally at the Chalk Garden and Wasatch Seasons). They've recently added a Children of the World line.
And they are all made the old-fashioned way: of hand-blown glass in Germany and Poland.
"I design a clay model," explained Krasnobrod from her home in San Francisco, "and then we make a steel mold. As the glass is blown, the mold comes down to clamp around the hot glass and shape it. The ornament is silvered on the inside and then hand-painted."
Christmas ornaments have been made that way in Germany for centuries, which is where, after all, the whole idea of decorating Christmas trees began back in the 1600s. Since then, Christmas tree ornaments have become one of the most universal and best-loved of all Christmas decorations. At the same time, they have become one of the most personal -- a way for people to express tastes and interests, build collections, capture memories.