(Editor’s note: DeeDee Wood is the owner of Black Cat Curiosities, an online antiques research and sales venue.)
Large, glowing plastic lawn ornaments, with smiling faces of Santa, snowmen or even the nativity scene, are a product of mid-century ingenuity and manufacturing.
Once popular for the newness of materials and innovation of design and presentation, the blow mold is making a comeback for appreciation of nostalgia.
Plastic blow molds were created with a process that involved blowing melted plastic into a hollow manufactured mold.
A compression of air was then blown into the mold, thus inflating the warm plastic and causing it to shape to the mold.
The plastic was cooled, painted, and sometimes had a light bulb added to illuminate the creation on the manufacturing conveyor.
Some of the most iconic vintage Christmas/holiday blow molds include Santa Claus, reindeer and a sleigh, nativity scenes, (complete with three wise men, Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus and barn animals), snowmen, elves, and more.
It wasn’t unusual to look up on a low rooftop in the 1970s and see Santa and his sleigh, with reindeer pulling a plastic load of goodies, illuminated by light bulbs.
With origins in the glassblowing process used for Christmas glass ornaments in the 1930s, this concept quickly transferred to Christmas decorations and holiday/seasonal displays with a cheaper plastic content used as polymers were perfected and used more readily for cost.
Mass production began in the 1950s, and continued during the prime time for these types of blow molds, well into early 1990s, when inflatable canvas creations replaced them for cost and material handling, with ease of assembly and storing.
During the initial phase of creation in the 1950s, manufacturers, including Beco and Poloron Products, as well as Empire Plastics, produced the iconic Santas and snowmen, just to name a few, you see in antique shops today.
Blow molds have made a bit of a resurgence in recent years, as nostalgia and a longing for childhood Christmas memories bring generations who once knew these iconic ornaments in their youth to the antique stores or online buying to obtain a bit of their memories in plastic. Some are quite expensive and rare.
Colorful displays, simple illumination and sweet memories sometimes fill the holidays on chilly winter nights yet again.
From origins in simple glass ornaments of earlier times, polymers and plastics took hold and offered cheap economy to a growing interest and desire to deck the halls and celebrate the season with Santa and friends illuminating the night.
