The ornament below is the last of a set that my parents got back in the 1950s. I believe the filaments, called “angel hair,” are spun glass, or at least that’s what a seller on Etsy says about the ones they’re selling.
I remember being fascinated by these as a child. My parents had them in the round balls like the one above, teardrops, and bells. By the time they had given me what was left of the set when I was in my 20s, there were only three or four left, and the paint worn off or degraded to the point where the plastic underneath was brown and starting to crumble. Not sure how this one survived, but I’m glad I have it. (And yes, that is a flamingo photobombing in the background on the left, heh.)
When my parents gave me this ornament and its remaining companions, one of my sisters once said that they creeped her out, just because of the thought of them being angel hair. This was probably when the first inklings of my future atheism came out because I thought she was daft for even mentioning it or thinking angels were real. At that point I had long since shed any belief in angels of any kind, be they guardian angels, archangels, or fallen angels. The only angels I acknowledge are the human or critter kind here on Earth, the gentle people who seek to help and heal with no reward to themselves and the sweet, innocent birds and animals that seem to have a sense for when humans are in distress and arrive to comfort or assist. But the biblical ones? Right out.
In fact, when I look at modern renderings of biblically accurate angels, I tend to think that Ezekiel and the others who wrote about angels in the Bible were probably on some potent hallucinogenic mushrooms or plants at the time. Have you seen some of the images people have created based on biblical descriptions of angels?
Here’s a Seraphim:
And so much for Cherubim being cute little babies flying around pointing arrows at yer arse to make you fall in love.
Still not nightmarish enough for ya? Try an Ophanim.
Clearly if the ornaments had been made with angel parts, they would not have been made with hair, but with eyeballs.
Which actually would be pretty cool—as long as they didn’t blink.
zenzalei 