» Christmas Decorations » Christmas Ornaments » Fours Seasons of Radko » Radko Ornament History » Wedding Decorating Dynamic Duo Santa's Spring Break Scream Team Wet N Wild Santa History of Radko Ornaments Christopher Radko took an unlikely path toward creating a multimillion dollar business. In fact, Christopher's success in Christmas and home furnishings was literally an accident. At age 40, Christopher is celebrating sixteen years in business, designs and produces a brilliant line of fine glass Christmas ornaments, garlands and figures depicting everything from the very traditional to the very whimsical. His designs inspire joy and awaken the spiritual significance of the holiday, and, best of all, serve as special momentos of a family's holiday celebrations. In 1983, Christopher's family put up there Christmas tree and, in the spirit of tradition, adorned it with their heirloom collection of over 2000 hand made, glass blown ornaments. Then, one week before Christmas, a terrible and like changing event occurred for christopher. The family's Christmas tree crashed, smashing the beautiffully decorated ornaments. "With sudden and resounding finality, it seemed that the door that linked me and my family to the memories of Christmases past had slammed shut. We were devastated." In an attept to make ammends for the broken ornaments, Christopher made it his personal quest to restore the heirloom collection. The next summer, while visiting distant cousins in Poland, he began to look for glass ornaments but found nothing. He decided instead to find a glass blower who could make the ornaments, but that was difficult as well. After finally locating and working with a craftsman, Christopher used his knowledge of traditional ornament shapes and had several dozen ornaments produced that he intended to bring home to his family. The ornaments never made it. His friends eagerly purchased all of them. On the next trip overseas, he brought back more ornaments and those sold out as well. At that point, Christopher realized that he his ornaments were truely one of a kind. Most ornaments sold in the United States in the early `80's were made out of synthetic materials. They were mass produced in countries that didn't celebrate Christmas and were not very appealing. Nothing approached the quality and craftsmanship that his ornaments demonstrated. Christopher decided to open his business and by his second year, he had $75,000 in sales. The company grew from there. Sixteen years later, Christopher Radko's 2001 collection includes more than 1,200 designs. Instead of selling his ornaments during his lunch hour, Christopher today has 3,000 accounts, including the many large, high quality retailers like Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, Marshall Fields and Roger's Gardens. Christopher's artistry is now world renowned. Eager collectors and fans await the release of his sparkling collection year after year.