A mainly sunny sky. High 74F. Winds light and variable..

Mostly clear. Low near 50F. Winds light and variable.

“Bottle of Pearl, please,” shrieked Shakespeare, my parakeet.

As long as I had Shakespeare while going to college, he shrieked, “To be, or not to be.” After I gave him to my parents, he switched to “Bottle of Pearl, please,” obviously taught to him by my father whose favorite brand of beer was Pearl. And in those days, all beer, except keg beer, was sold in bottles.

Even after 1963 or 1964, when beverages were first sold in aluminum cans, my father, along with lots of others, preferred bottled beer.

Today, polls indicate that while a majority of folks prefer to drink beer in bottles rather than in cans, consumer reports show that more beer in cans is sold than in bottles. Many who prefer beer in bottles say it tastes better than in cans.

I’m inclined to believe it’s more an aesthetic thing than a taste choice. To many, glass is more aesthetic than aluminum. Just as glass ornaments on Christmas trees seem to be more popular than those made of metal, wood, plastic, or felt.

The only reason our tree is glass ornament-less this year is that our cat Pixie enjoys slapping her favorite ornaments off the tree, and for the first Christmas in a long time, we will have a toddler in the house.

In the 1930s and 1940s, when I was a child, and before plastic was invented, glass was a very popular material for many things, including Christmas ornaments. While Christmas ornaments were fragile glass, fruit jars, water pitchers, and bottles were very sturdy glass. My mother canned pickles and jelly in glass jars, and she bottled homemade catsup, pepper sauce, and root beer in the soda water bottles we saved.

She also saved old bottles that were especially pretty because of color or unique shape. Many necklaces were made of glass, but were not as beautiful as glass jewelry today, as newer glass blowing techniques have now been developed.

Glass was, and is, made from natural materials, which are found in abundance – such as sand, soda ash, and limestone. From a chemist’s point of view, glass is made from silica, calcium carbonate, and sodium carbonate. Very high heat is required in making glass, and nature sometimes makes its own, such as within a volcano.

Both fragile glass and sturdy glass can be very beautiful. Just as splendid-looking as fragile glass Christmas tree ornaments are, sturdy glass bottles making up the walls of a building. Years ago, I saw a small glass house made of empty bottles in Frontier Town on the 7-A Ranch Resort in Wimberley. Standing inside the small building, with the sun shining through the many colored glass bottles, I was bathed in rainbow-colored light. Very aesthetic, but probably not as awesome as the huge house made entirely of glass bottles and concrete in Alpine, Texas.

Made of natural materials, and apparently not all that difficult to make, glass has long been around for our aesthetic pleasure and for our daily needs. As I sit here, looking at our no-glass-ornament Christmas tree, I feel a little sad about not seeing those wonderful old glass ornaments made of splendid delicate glass.

But there are trade offs. This Christmas, we will enjoy watching our cat slap off her favorite ornaments, and our toddler grabbing her favorite felt decorations.

Ray Spitzenberger is a retired WCJC teacher, a retired LCMS pastor, and author of three books, It Must Be the Noodles, Open Prairies, and Tanka Schoen.

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