When Perzy tried the trick with a lightbulb, he discovered the brightness wasn’t improved. But what if he added something to the water that the light could bounce off of? Perzy started with white semolina flakes, used in baby food at the time. “He poured [them] into the glass globe, and [they] got soaked by the water and floated very slowly to the base of the globe,” his grandson, Erwin Perzy III, told the BBC. “This effect reminded him of snowfall.” Inspiration struck: What if he used his technical expertise to create a tiny diorama in his snowy little world? Perzy made a miniature replica of the Basilica of the Birth of the Virgin Mary in Mariazell, Austria, placed it in his water-filled globe, sealed it, and mounted it to a gypsum base that he painted black. And voila—the first snow globe was born.
Snow globes are supposed to remind you of the swirling flurries of a gentle winter storm, and while most snow-based experiences are positive, too much cold can be deadly—as Etsy seller BubbleRoll’s snow globe featuring a frozen Jack Torrance from the end of The Shining reminds us. The Great Elder One will be pleased with you if you leave this tribute to him resting on your mantel. Along the base of this snow globe from Fear Werx is the ominous Necronomicon quote: “That is not dead which can eternal lie and with strange aeons even death may die.” It’s going to be a very scary Christmas this year thanks to this delightful snow globe from Things From Another World Comics filled with zombie carolers. Additional info at personalized snow globe.
Anatomy of a Snow Globe: Originally the globes were made of glass and the figures inside were made of porcelain, bone, metals, minerals, rubber or wax. The snow or “flitter” as it’s called, could have been ground rice, wax, soap, sand, bone fragments, meerschaum, metal flakes or sawdust. Producers tried everything. The base was either round or square and may have been of stone, marble, ceramic or wood. Today, all but the best quality globes are plastic. The liquid is just water in the plastic snow globes. Glass snow globes often include glycol, an antifreeze, to keep the glass from breaking if frozen. A little dust doesn’t bother snow globes – but they don’t like direct sunlight.
Many Americans decorated their trees with imported ornaments up until World War II. Before World War II, many ornaments Americans purchased were imported from Germany. But once World War II started, Corning, an American glass company, started making ornaments out of a light bulb machine. They made 300,000 ornaments a day! The legend behind stockings involves a sweet story about Santa doing something really nice for a poor family. The common legend about Christmas stockings (which has an unknown source and date, according to Smithsonian Magazine) tells a tale of a poor, widowed man who had three young daughters that he worried would never marry due to their lack of wealth. St. Nick overheard people chatting about this family, so he slid down the man’s chimney and placed gold coins in the girls’ clean stockings that were hanging to dry by the fireplace. Source: https://www.qstomize.com/collections/custom-snow-globe.