A century of Christmas Decorations

One day in the Autumn of 1880 a travelling salesman called at Frank Woolworth's store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA.  The Great Woolworth 5 Cent Store had been in business for just over a year, and at 28 years old Frank was getting quite a reputation as a merchant - a canny buyer who could spot a good seller.

The salesman wanted to sell German glass ornaments for people to display at Christmas.  Woolworth tried to turn him away - Americans would never waste money on something decorative, why not find something practical to sell, he asked.  In the end Frank was persuaded to take one case of 144 decorations - strictly on sale or return terms!

Much to the young shopkeeper's surprise, the decorations sold out in under a day, generating a profit of $4.32 - or three cents on each one. Frank made a point of ordering double the next year, and as his chain expanded he found he could sell very large quantities. It seemed that despite Woolworth's initial scepticism customers loved the idea of Christmas Decorations! Every one was hand-blown by a craftsman in an area that today is part of the Russian Federation.

To push home the advantage Frank Woolworth channeled most of his orders through a single supplier, the main importer in New York City, who was a gentleman by the name of Mr Wilmsem. It is estimated that total sales between 1880 and 1939 exceeded a staggering five hundred million individual baubles! In 1939, at the age of 81 Mr Wilmsem recalled his first meeting with Frank in the early 1880s, saying

"Mr Woolworth had at that time only a few stores. But I grew with Woolworth.  I have sold them at least $25,000,000 worth of Christmas tree ornaments, in one year $800,000 worth.  At first we imported tinsel from Germany.  Since the war I make it myself.  To-day, at the corner of Haegert and Jasper Streets I have a big factory.  I have 255 people working to fill Woolworth orders.  We sell to all, but Woolworth was the first.  I am the oldest Woolworth supplier." 

By the time Frank decided to branch out, going international with his first overseas store in Liverpool, England, the decorations were such an important part of the offer that they featured in the advertisement for the store's opening on 5 November 1909.

Although fancy decorations for the Christmas tree were already fashionable in Victorian high society, they were out of the price bracket of most ordinary people.  Woolworth's changed that overnight bringing the price down from several shillings (10-25p) to just one old penny each (half a penny in decimal currency at the time and the equivalent of about 35p today).  The ornaments sold in huge quantities !

The British Buyers were able to use the same sources in rural Germany as their counterparts at headquarters in New York, and thanks to a brainwave by the first Englishman on their team, William Stephenson, they were able to reduce the shipping cost for everyone. Stocks for the stores in American and Canada were re-routed from continental Europe by ship into Hull and then onwards to Liverpool via the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, before making the final stage of their journey to the USA by steam ship on the Liverpool to New York blue riband route.

Most of the decorations were made all the year round in tiny family-run businesses, often at home. Stocks were accumulated in wicker baskets and then taken by horse and cart to the five and ten's purpose-built warenhausen (warehouse) in Sonneberg, Germany where the makers were paid in cash. The store chain employed packers who neatly wrapped the decorations and loaded theminto boxes for their long journey to the shops.

Some of the designs, like bells and bulbs, remain fashionable today. But other classics have vanished from 21st Century packs, perhaps because they would be hard to make by machine. For example miniature glass trumpets and tiny glass guitars, which were very fragile, were a big hit with Edwardian children. Before the First World War individual decorations were sold for one old penny each, or in a box of twelve for the bargain price of ten old pence (4p in decimal currency at the time, equivalent to about £1.75 today).

In 1914 Frank Woolworth was on a regular buying and social trip to Europe, preparing for the following Christmas when he was caught on the hop by the fast onset of World War I. The founder found himself stranded on the wrong side of enemy lines, struggling to get home.

For the next four years it wasn't possible to import European decorations - with many of the makers called to serve in the German or Russian army, and U-boats threatening shipping in the English Channel and the Atlantic. The British Woolies hired local firms to make alternative glass decorations, using simpler designs. They also experimented with strings of multi-coloured beads from a jewellery supplier as a substitute for baubles, and developed new paper and foil decorations that became popular in the 1920s. In the USA Frank Woolworth was able to teach factories to replicate a wide array of designs that he had previously sourced in Europe.

Trade links with Germany were soon resumed once the World War was over, and it wasn't long before supplies of baubles and decorations were flowing again from the Sonneberg warehouse.

A new design proved specially popular with Woolworths shoppers as the firm launched the 'finial bauble' - a special decoration for the top of the tree. This glass design clipped over the top branch and provided a colourful tree ball, with a slot on top for a candle. In the days before most homes had electricity this provided a simple way of lighting the tree - sometimes literally, as candles and pine needles have always been a dangerous combination!

During the 1920s elaborate paper decorations were all the rage, with designs that unfolded to make bells, fancy pom-pom balls and stars especially popular. Woolies also sold individual metre-long lengths of tinsel, with a thin design for a penny and a 'plush garland' for threepence (about 1¼p at the time, equivalent of about £1.05 each today).

Every store featured a large, eye-catching display on a wall near the front. By 1929 company bosses circulated photos to make sure that each of their 300 stores got their decorations display 'picture pefect'!

As the chain grew, bosses were keen to ensure consistency between one branch and another. A growing army of senior managers at regional and national level published instructions of how everything was to be done and what it was to look like. Each group of stores had a Superintendent (Area Manager) who toured his branches making sure that staff were smartly turned out in their maroon uniforms, counters were full and tidy and that floors were swept. The firm insisted that the mahogany counters and their glass partitions were scupulously clean and polished.

This discipline of operation, which is commonplace in big chains today, was rare at the time. It helped Woolworth to expand rapidly. With only a few exceptions, whether you visited a store on the West Coast of Ireland or in Central London, the layout, prices and ambience of the store were very similar, even if the branch was a different size.

One of the most popular innovations of the 1930s was the introduction of elegant nativity sets made from 'Chalkware'. Sculpted gypsum was set in moulds and then hand painted with water colours before being glazed with varnish. The individual figures sold for sixpence each, or the full set of eight with a stable made of dark-stained plywood sold for three shillings (15p at the time, equivalent to about £12.60 today). Each figure was quite heavy and brittle, but thanks to the glaze many survive in vivid original colours to this day.

For ten years from 1929 there was a key difference between the British and American Woolworth stores. The US parent company phased out its ten cent price limit in three stages up to 1933. The move was forced by new US labour regulations that set a minimum wage and a maximum working week. Without the constraint the stores in North American were able to introduce a raft of new products that had previously been too expensive. By 1939 their best seller was a string of nine electric bakelite tree lights for eighty-five cents, seventeen times the previous limit !

In Britain the management was determined to keep prices under sixpence. By 1934 the six hundred-strong store base gave them the muscle to force suppliers to keep cost prices down or lose orders. Even when raw material prices started to rise from 1936 as Britain started to re-arm, most Woolworth cost prices were held.

To maintain profits the stores promoted items like paper chains and garlands which had higher margins. These were used to dress the stores and make the salesfloors look festive, in marked contrast to the lavish electronic and cellulose displays across the Atlantic.

By Christmas 1939 there was an even starker contrast. Britain was at war with Germany. The shelves were unusually empty. A small catalogue was circulated showing customers how to make do and mend, and how to recognise enemy aircraft and military insignia. The USA was enjoying a period of prosperity and was neutral in the early years of the war. The stores went into Christmas in confident mood, with their first full-colour catalogue, which promoted the latest innovations and notions for all the family.

During World War II, despite shortages and rationing, the stores were allowed to stock a few decorations to help maintain public morale. These were made from paper and cardboard rather than precious metal or glass. Crepe Paper was the best seller. The pack showed how customers could make their own garlands and floral decorations. The stores also sold packets of gummed, coloured paper to make paper chains. Customers remember that the wartime cow gum mix used as glue tasted dreadful !

Rapid price inflation made the sixpenny price limit untenable in 1940. It was dropped temporarily but never reinstated.

Some former managers came out of retirement to keep the stores trading after the younger staff were called up. A popular party trick for these worldly-wise men was to show shoppers how to make a simple Christmas tree or hanging decoration from a sixpenny pack of pipe cleaners. Necessity was certainly the mother of invention.

In an ironic twist, shortly after the USA joined World War II, American bombers destroyed the F. W. Woolworth warenhausen in Sonneberg, finally ending the sixty year-long supply of blown glass decorations. After the war the map was redrawn putting most of the makers in the Soviet Union. Despite this Woolworth stores on both sides of the Atlantic were among the first to get decorations back on sale after the long conflict, thanks to a new source of supply in occupied Japan.

From 1946 until 1955 the British, German, American and Canadian Woolworth stores all stocked products from the Far East in the same packaging. At other times common suppliers had to pack products differently to satisfy the vanity of each country's Buying Office.

As life returned to normal in the early 1950s after post-war austerity measures were relaxed, Woolworth enjoyed an unrivalled period of prosperity. Without an upper price limit the Buyers were free to build more elaborate ranges. But they made a particular point of pricing seasonal products like Christmas Decorations very competitively, and where possible identifying items that could still be sold for the traditional prices of threepence and sixpence. The display from the new superstore in Commercial Road, Portsmouth (above) shows the breadth of items available, with snow globes, paper and foil decorations still sixpence each and miniature nine inch Christmas Trees for one shilling and sixpence (7½p). Decorations, cards, wrapping paper and calendars were so popular that for the eight weeks before Christmas lampshades and some home ranges were removed from sale to make way for elaborate hanging displays of foil and paper decorations that were sold flat-packed from the counters underneath.

During the 1950s the availability of new materials, including man-made fibres and plastic, revolutionised the design of Christmas Decorations. Many were mass-produced by the emerging factories of Hong Kong and sold in the stores labelled 'Empire Made'.

Little by little prices crept upwards as larger items were added to the range. Where once Woolworth had stocked only miniature trees, they now offered artificial trees in heights of up to eight feet (2.4m). These were made of a new nylon fabric and were made by the same factory that produced Woolworth loo brushes!

In the late 1950s and early 1960s one of the surprise winners out of the plastic novelties made in Hong Kong was 'Santa's Candy Flyer' (above), consisting of two reindeer pulling santa and his sleigh. According to the box the kit contained a Jolly Santa, 4 Plastic Toys, 2 Prancing Reindeer and a sleigh with a container of candy pops. This type of item, which could be made and transported from the factory to the stores cheaply, offered a good margin and generated strong sales.

By the late 1970s Woolworths had assembled a spectacular range of Christmas decorations, with plastic shatterproof ornaments alongside traditional glass models, corsages, foil decorations, paper chains, crackers, lights and garlands.  While other areas of the store struggled against increasing competition, Christmas sales rocketed, boosted by wall-to-wall television advertising.

It wasn't until Paternoster (Kingfisher) bought the business in 1982 and used learning from Woolworths to develop a range of Christmas decorations at B&Q, that the High Street stores faced very much competition at the budget end of the market.  During the 1980s, following B&Q's example, most DIY stores and Garden Centres launched more substantial Christmas ranges.

Under the new owners the Christmas range was enhanced. New display principles and garland canopies added a spectacular finishing touch and established a strong Christmas atmosphere in the stores. The product range was updated but kept price-competitive. The moves helped to head off increased competition from out of town. Sales volumes continued to grow despite the closure of the two hundred largest branches, which were sold off piecemeal for redevelopment. Over the following nineteen years the display principles remained largely unchanged. It was considered a proven formula that helped to exhibit the foil decorations, baubles and garlands to advantage. It also provided a highly visible beacon to guide customers to the Christmas Decorations counter at the back of the store. The product selection was adjusted each year, with a major refresh and new packaging every third or fourth year.

The Eighties reshaping of the Woolworth offer, known as 'Operation Focus', helped to revive the fortunes of the chain. The new look boosted customer numbers throughout the year, particularly at Christmas. By the 1990s virtually the entire annual profit was made in the six weeks leading up to the big day. Directors worried that if they ever 'messed up' Christmas the chain could make a loss.

From 1990 to 1994 there was a concerted campaign to become less dependent on Christmas, and to deal with new threats from discount retailers like Wilkinson who had started to undercut the High Street stores. Prices were lowered - except in the seasonal decorations and cards departments.

As part of a shake-up the Board redeployed their long-serving Buyer of Cards and Decorations, Roger Stafford, a second generation Woolworth Man. Like his father before him, he had started in the stores and worked his way up to the buying role. Father and son had provided continuity to the business for many years. Stafford's new job was to help the chain to implement EPOS tills, getting barcodes on all the products and amending working practices to exploit new item level sales data.

As many senior managers focused on EPOS, a less experienced team had to manage the set up for Christmas 1994. Mistakes were made causing a sharp dip in profits, mutterings at the parent company's Annual General Meeting and a big shake-up in the Boardroom.

To stop the rot, a much loved former Director Roger Jones was recalled from retirement as MD. He put Stafford in charge of Christmas planning for the business as a whole. The two men drove a remarkable recovery with profits topping £100m for the first time in 1997.

But while better retail disciplines behind the scenes and a catchy new television campaign featuring 'Keith the Alien' touring the store on the night before Christmas and dressing his spaceship with the chain's popular tree lights were able to improve the fortunes of the brand as a whole, the traditional Christmas range was now under threat.

Following Stafford's move upwards, increased competition in the market started to challenge Woolworths' supremacy on budget lines, particularly as supermarkets as well as Garden Centres and DIY stores started to give space to lights, tinsel, decorations and crackers. The response from a succession of new Buyers at Woolworths was to make the High Street chain's range more fashionable, enhancing the designs, improving the packaging and featuring colour themes and some of the popular character brands which were enjoying popularity in the Ladybird clothing, Toys and Video departments.

New higher-priced items like giant snow globes and packs of 200 'chasing' lights that flashed in complex sequences proved a big hit in the chain's out-of-town Big W stores which emerged in 1999 and in the more affluent High Street and City Centre locations. The approach avoided a head-to-head confrontation with the supermarkets, but did little to tackle the increased competition from Wilkinson, Argos and Poundstretcher.

Following the chain's demerger from Kingfisher in 2002, the move up-market accelerated. After fifty years the garland canopies which had been used to show off the foil decorations, baubles and garlands with withdrawn. The new management put the decision down to health and safety and changing customer tastes, although the removal of most decorations in-store was primarily a cost-saving exericse. Somehow, for old hands, it seemed part of the Christmas magic had disappeared. When sales declined the view was that this was because the decorations should be at the front rather than the back of the store, ignoring the way the canopies had acted as a beacon to draw customers to the range.

To the credit of the chain's young buyers in the 21st Century, they followed their brief well. They built a fashionable and elegant new range of trees and decorations, with many innovative lines which will continue to brighten homes across the UK for years to come.

Huge reindeer and sleigh lights to hang from window sills or place on chimneys proved a big hit and overall sales volumes continued to grow after the demerger.

But now this was a range for the well-to-do rather than for all.

Poor profit performance for the store chain after the demerger prompted executives to reconsider the Kids and Celebrations strategy that had been launched by the new CEO, Trevor Bish-Jones in 2002. Directors and Consultants wondered whether perhaps the chain had moved too far upmarket or needed a major re-think. In the end they concluded that the new ranges weren't the problem - it was just that they were not the whole solution. There was no reason why the chain could not stock fashionable upmarket lines AND offer a budget selection to rival the supermarkets and a new threat from growing number of Pound Shops. The chain's new Commercial Managing Director Tony Page, who joined from Asda, evangelised a new value range called WorthIt! In 2007 ge tested the idea on basic Christmas Decorations, reintroducing some of the foil designs, tinsel and plastic baubles of earlier times. The range was a sell-out, and store colleagues were excited in Spring 2008 when they saw previews of a much larger range of WorthIt! decorations for the chain's hundredth Christmas.

As the sample pages from the Woolworths Big Red Book catalogue show, the High Street chain had finally come full circle, offering a three foot (0.85m) Christmas Tree for £2, a little under the original price of a three inch (7.5cm) model in 1909 and a twist garland for 20p, in equivalent terms about half of the penny price when the doors first opened in 1909.

Customers and store colleagues were delighted with the new season's value range when they started putting it on sale in October 2008. The WorthIt! products only got a limited show in the trimmed down version of the Big Red Book catalogue (which was intended to be the last of the line). The reduced page space was because most of the cheap items were only intended for sale in-store rather than on the website. Despite much larger orders than the previous year, stocks started to sell out within days of going on sale.

Just weeks later, as the business prepared for the peak month's trading in December, news broke that the chain's bankers had refused to extend their credit amidst the turmoil of a global economic crisis later called the 'credit crunch'. Customers flocked to the stores in huge numbers, giving the busiest day's trading ever the following morning. The first range in the range to sell out was every tree, decoration, card, calendar and diary that the stores could muster - cheap or expensive, elegant or down-right naff, the counters were stripped bare, with every Christmas item sold at full price.

Sadly WorthIt! and the revival of interest in the High Street brand had come too late to save the venerable 99 year old retailer's stores. Less than forty days after going into Administration the shutters fell in the High Street for the last time. The brand itself 'ascended' to the Internet, thanks to the rescue by respected Shop Direct Group. Today Woolworths continue to offer a great selection of decorations and Christmas goodies on-line, building on a tradition that all started with a single glass decoration in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA more than 130 years ago. When you shop at woolworths.co.uk, you follow in the footsteps of seven generations, who know that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without Woolworths.