Mary Lou Armstrong, president of Whitehurst Imports in Easton, is in a magical business. Her "product" is a dying craft, made of hopes and legends and scientific-quality glass in equal measure. For her, Christmas lasts 365 days a year.
The Whitehurst company, based on the Eastern Shore, is one of the most respected importers of European glass ornaments in the country, with 15 showrooms nationwide.
These Old World ornaments bring joy to the hearts of wide-eyed children and serious collectors alike. You can buy a handmade Whitehurst Santa for just a few dollars, or spend hundreds on a limited edition "Nutcracker Suite" set, with the Nutcracker, Clara, Herr Drosselmeyer and the Mouse King.
"Many of the ornaments are designs I remember from my childhood in Germany," says Bruni Obriecht, owner of the Calico Cat in Woodlawn, which has sold Whitehurst products for 27 years. "The quality is outstanding."
Mrs. Obriecht doesn't carry the competition, the immensely popular Christopher Radko line. "They're too pricey," she says.
When Olga Whitehurst started the company in 1947 with her husband, Morris, she probably never dreamed it would one day be the oldest continual importer of glass ornaments in the United States, with 1,246 ornaments in its line (and 450 other items, such as sterling silver tinsel).
Mrs. Whitehurst was born in Lithuania, where decorating the Christmas tree was an important part of the holiday celebration. She was one of the first importers after World War II to search out glass-blowing families in Europe to rekindle the trade in America. Mrs. Whitehurst's four Siamese cats often accompanied her on her buying trips to Europe.
In 1982, when the Whitehursts were ready to retire, Mrs. Armstrong, her husband and her brother bought the company, although Mrs. Armstrong is the only one directly involved in its day-to-day management.
On a buying trip she's been known to come out of a factory at the end of a day "with a face-full of flitter," as she describes it.
The factory might be in Germany or perhaps Poland, where mouth-blown, hand-painted glass ornaments are produced. (Mrs. Armstrong does much of the designing as well as the buying for Whitehurst.) "Flitter" is the crushed glass that adds extra sparkle to those ornaments -- what those of us not in the business would call glitter.
Mrs. Armstrong has carried on her predecessor's dedication to quality, refusing to go outside Europe for her ornaments because she feels no one can equal the craftsmanship of the original glass-blowing countries.
"We believe in the tradition of Christmas," says Mrs. Armstrong. "That's why we stick to Europe. The Far East is just copying." Whitehurst now carries exclusive designs from Germany, Austria, Poland, Italy and the Czech and Slovak republics.
Along with the usual Santas, snowmen, horns and toys is a whole line of Adams and Eves and garden serpents. (In the ancient liturgical calendar, the feast of Adam and Eve was celebrated Dec. 24.) There are spiders, with and without webs. (In one Christmas legend, spiders were instrumental in hiding the baby Jesus from Herod's soldiers.) Fruit and vegetable ornaments are big sellers, from bunches of grapes to little red and white mushrooms. All are traditional European designs.
The first thin-walled glass ornaments were introduced in the middle of the 19th century in Germany -- Lauscha, to be exact. Until World War II, Germany dominated the market. The German designs are sturdier than they look because of the high quality glass used. The interior of the ornament is coated with silver nitrate for reflection. Then the crafts person dips it in lacquer and decorates it with paint, flitter and even 24-karat gold in the case of master glassblower Harald Gleichmann.
Herr Gleichmann, as everyone calls him, is one of only a handful of master glassblowers in the world who specialize in making ornaments. He can blow a teapot ornament with full spout and handle -- no problem. Or a horn with each key blown individually.
Recently Mrs. Armstrong brought Herr Gleichmann and his wife, Isolde, to the United States to demonstrate his craft. (It's a dying craft: Few young people are interested in taking it up.) Hundreds in this area saw Herr Gleichmann over Thanksgiving week at Garland's, Watson's, the Calico Cat and Valley View Farms, where he turned out some 60 ornaments a day, hand-painted by his wife.
These are places known for their Christmas shops; and Kathy Debus, shop manager for Valley View Farms, credits the Whitehursts for starting her store off in the Christmas business 30 years ago.
"It's been a long relationship," she says, and business is better than ever this year. "It seems like people are going back to Old World ornaments," she says. Connie Watson at Watson's agrees. Many of the designs Watson's carries were already sold out by the end of November. "If I had known I would have bought ten times more," she says.
You can recognize a Whitehurst ornament by its patented "Tannenbaum cap," a little tree-shaped wire hanger at the top. Just last year the company won the right to use the cap at a trial here in Baltimore. Old World Christmas, which uses a similar star cap, had sued Whitehurst.
To help make their case and demonstrate the quality of the company's designs, Mrs. Armstrong put up a Christmas tree in the courtroom covered with Whitehurst ornaments. (This was in August.) Not only did the company win the suit, "but my whole team of lawyers became ornament collectors," says Mrs. Armstrong with a laugh.
