Ann-Sofi Romme 2025 Ornaments: Heart, Bell and Bird in Glass
Ann-Sofi Romme's 2025 heart, bell and bird for Holmegaard's 200th year: sizes, why annual ornaments are collected, and how to hang clear glass.
Holmegaard turned 200 in 2025, and Ann-Sofi Romme's annual Christmas ornaments for the year carry the anniversary in their decoration. This piece looks at the three small clear editions, a heart, a bell and a bird: what each one measures, why people collect these dated pieces year after year, and how to hang thin glass so it catches the light rather than disappearing into the tree.
A swan for Holmegaard's 200th year
Holmegaard was founded in 1825 as a glassworks on Zealand, and the swan is the company's symbol. For the anniversary edition, Ann-Sofi Romme drew a stylised gold swan and surrounded it with small red hearts and a branch of red winter berries. Holmegaard describes the motif as one of transformation, beauty and a poetic sense of joy. For a Danish audience the swan also brings Hans Christian Andersen's ugly duckling to mind, which suits a theme of transformation rather well.
The palette is deliberately classic. Red and gold are applied to clear glass and finished with a metallic layer, so the gold reads as gold rather than as yellow paint. The glass itself stays uncoloured, which is the point: the ornament borrows its colour from whatever is behind it, whether that is a dark fir branch, a white wall or a winter window. Each piece hangs from a matching red silk ribbon, and in the product photographs a small gold heart drop sits beneath the glass.
All three are mouth blown in borosilicate glass, the same family of glass used for laboratory ware because it handles changes in temperature well. In an ornament this matters less for heat than for thinness: the walls can be blown fine, which keeps each piece light on a branch.
Heart, bell and bird: the three small 2025 ornaments
The three shapes share one decoration but behave quite differently once they are hung.
The Ann-Sofi Romme Annual Christmas Heart 2025 small clear measures 8 cm high, 7 cm wide and 3 cm deep, and weighs 0.03 kg. It is the flattest of the three, with the swan and its berries on the front and two red hearts at the shoulders. Because it has a clear front and back, it looks best where it faces the room squarely, such as on an outward branch at eye level or against a window.
The Ann-Sofi Romme Annual Christmas Bell 2025 small clear is 8 cm high with a diameter of 5.5 cm, and also weighs 0.03 kg. It is the only fully round form, so the decoration can be seen from several angles, the far side showing through in reverse. A gold heart hangs inside as a clapper, which gives the bell a small point of reflected light even when it turns away from you.
The Ann-Sofi Romme Annual Christmas Bird 2025 small clear measures 7 cm high, 8.5 cm wide and 3.5 cm deep, and weighs 0.04 kg. With its red tail feather it reaches 14 cm in length, so it needs more room than the other two. It reads as a bird perched on a branch rather than a bauble hanging from one, and it is worth giving it a horizontal stretch of branch where the feather can trail freely.
| Heart | Bell | Bird | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size | 8 (height) x 7 (width) x 3 (depth) cm | 8 cm high, diameter 5.5 cm | 7 (height) x 8.5 (width) x 3.5 (depth) cm, 14 cm long with tail feather |
| Weight | 0.03 kg | 0.03 kg | 0.04 kg |
| Material | Mouth blown borosilicate glass with red and gold decoration | ||
| Reads best | Face on, at eye level or in a window | From any side, near a light | On a level branch with room for the feather |
Why annual ornaments are collected year by year
An annual ornament belongs to one Christmas. The motif changes from year to year, so the 2025 pieces, with their anniversary swan, will always mark the year Holmegaard turned 200. That fixed date is what turns a decoration into a record. A tree hung with a run of annual pieces shows, branch by branch, the Christmases a household has spent together.
Ann-Sofi Romme's series for Holmegaard covers several shapes over the years, including birds, stars, baubles, bells and hearts. Collectors tend to follow one of two habits. Some keep to a single shape, a heart every December for instance, so the collection grows as a matching row with a different motif on each. Others gather every shape from one year, which gives a complete small set for a particular occasion: a first Christmas in a new home, a wedding year or a child's birth year. Adding one ornament each December is also a gentle way to give a child something that will mean more at thirty than at three.
Because each piece is dated by its design, storage matters. Wrap each ornament separately in tissue, keep the ribbon with it and store the glass where it will not be stacked under heavier decorations. For another Holmegaard glass ornament from the same anniversary year, see our piece on Jette Frölich's paper cuttings on glass.
Hanging clear glass on a tree
Clear glass behaves differently from coloured baubles. It has no colour of its own to hold attention, so placement decides whether it is seen at all.
- Go inward, not to the tips. Hang glass on the inner branches, a little way in from the end, where the wood is firmer and the ornament will not bounce or swing into its neighbours when someone brushes past.
- Hang near the lights. Set each piece close to a string light, slightly in front of or beside a bulb, so the light passes through the glass and catches the metallic gold. Against the dark needles further in, the swan stands out clearly. Keep the glass from resting directly on a bulb.
- Give each piece space. Among crowded coloured baubles, clear glass simply vanishes. Leave a little air around each one, or let a few clear pieces share a section of the tree with only white or gold.
- Mind the ribbon length. Tie the silk ribbon so the ornament hangs free and does not rest on the branch below, which can tilt it or knock it loose.
- Keep it high. If there are children or pets in the house, the lowest branches are not the place for mouth blown glass.
In a window and around the home
A window is where clear glass looks its best. With daylight behind it, the glass seems to glow and the gold swan appears almost as a silhouette. Hang an ornament from a curtain rod, a window latch or a small hook in the frame, at roughly eye level, and leave enough length on the ribbon that it does not touch the pane when the window is opened or the curtain moves. Three ornaments at staggered heights, the heart, the bell and the bird, make a simple composition without any other decoration.
Away from the tree, the ribbons invite other spots. Tie one to a cabinet knob or a door handle, hang the bird on a sprig of evergreen against a pale wall, or run several from a garland along a shelf, as in the photograph above. A light-coloured wall works in the same way as a window, giving the clear glass a background against which the red and gold read cleanly.
Care is simple. Wipe the glass with a dry, soft cloth. The ornaments are not dishwasher safe, so if they need more than dusting, wash them gently by hand and let them dry before storing.
To see how the 2025 pieces sit alongside other editions in the series, browse the Ann-Sofi Romme collection.
