Originally made from thin strands of genuine silver, tinsel was intended to reflect the light of candles on Christmas trees, ...

And, no, the tinsel and Christmas cards may not feel quite right either – no matter how sweet and sentimental the messages scrawled inside them may be. Your fairy-lights, on the other hand?

We tend to think of Christmas-season traditions as ancient ... “It was brilliantly lighted with...eighty lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between ...