37 Photos
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Sophomore Angela Acampora started in the circle for Westhampton Beach in its playoff opener at Sayville on Tuesday afternoon. DREW BUDD
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Board of Education member Gordon Werner at the board meeting on Monday. ERIN MCKINLEY
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Potato ornaments at Ms. Froehlich's home in Sag Harbor. ERICA THOMPSON
Robin Florence's 100-year-old candy cane ornament. ERICA THOMPSON
Robin Florence's 100-year-old candy cane ornament. ERICA THOMPSON
Robin Florence's 100-year-old candy cane ornament. ERICA THOMPSON
Robin Florence's 100-year-old candy cane ornament. ERICA THOMPSON
Robin Florence's 100-year-old candy cane ornament. ERICA THOMPSON
Robin Florence's 100-year-old candy cane ornament. ERICA THOMPSON
Christmas is known for its deeply rooted traditions, from recipes to morning rituals, so it comes as no surprise that holiday decorations have an equally important role in the celebration.
For three Sag Harbor families, Christmas, while filled with good food, quality time and new toys, also brings about the opportunity to admire a pretty piece of history hanging above the gift boxes under the tree.
Inside Joy Lewis’s old whaling home on Hampton Street in Sag Harbor is a collection of pre-World War I, German Christmas ornaments called Dresdens, hanging from an antique tree made of white turkey feathers. The delicate fixtures bear a strong resemblance to engraved or etched tin, but are in fact made of paper, Ms. Lewis said.
“Dresdens are a fine German craft,” said Ms. Lewis, “made between 1880 and World War I. After that, they stopped making them because all of the brass molds for the ornaments were melted to make ammunition, so by World War I, the craft was completely gone.”
Ms. Lewis and her late husband, Bob, purchased their first Dresden ornament—a miniature chair—at an antiques store in Manhattan in the mid 1970s.
“We didn’t go in there looking for it,” she said. “But we saw it, loved it, and have been collecting ever since. It didn’t have to be Christmas time,” she laughed.
One of her favorite ornaments, Ms. Lewis said, is a paper girl dressed as a butterfly, made from die-cut lithograph paper, a printing technique originating in the Turin Mountains in Switzerland that renders images like the ones used as paper dolls or in children’s pop-up books.
“It’s whimsical,” she said, adding that the tinsel used for the girl’s butterfly antennas was made from extruded metal.
“You know, you lose more than people in a war. Of course that’s the first thing everyone thinks of, but you lose craftsmanship and certain artistries that can’t be replaced either.”
Across town, at Allison and James Froehlich’s house on Narrow Lane in Sag Harbor, a trio of glittery, natural, muted-tone ornaments hangs from the tree in their living room in an unlikely shape—that of a potato.
Ms. Froehlich was born into the Babinski family, originally from Sagaponack, and said she bought the ornaments because of her family’s background in agriculture.
“My dad was a potato farmer, so when I saw these, I had to get them,” she said of the ornaments, which she purchased at a Christmas shop in East Hampton Village more than 20 years ago. Ms. Froehlich said she could not remember the name of the store but that it has since closed.
“My grandparents had the Babinski Farm on Lumber Lane, and my dad wound up farming that with his brother,” she said while petting the family’s rabbit Thumper.
Also hanging from the tree was a small, green John Deere ornament with her son, James’s, name on it.
“I’ve had that since I was a little kid,” said Mr. Froehlich, 18, who had just come inside from working on a tractor in his garage.
And down Sagg Road at Robin Florence’s house in Mount Misery is a 100-year-old candy cane ornament passed down to Ms. Florence from her great-grandmother.
“It was part of a set of three that my mom had inherited: one for me, my sister, and my brother,” Ms. Florence said in her kitchen. “Growing up, Dawn and I used to fight over whose ornament was whose. We finally decided that hers was the green one, mine was red, and Robert’s was blue.”
Ms. Florence said although her brother no longer has his ornament, her sister, Dawn, plans to pass hers on to her daughter, Isabel. Ms. Florence said she will leave her ornament to her two daughters, Ashley and Amy.
“I don’t know what will happen with ours,” Ashley laughed over the phone on Saturday. “I guess we’ll have to duke it out.”
Erica Thompson on Dec 19, 2014