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2 days ago | Advertorial | Kirsty Galbraith

“My hands can’t hold the glass cutter any more. After 39 years, I’m closing my workshop.” – Why 68-year-old Delys is selling her Christmas tree lamps for the first and last time. After this Christmas, her most-loved design is gone for good.

For 39 years, Delys Harcourt only ever gave her little glass trees away. Now she is closing her workshop in Castlemaine, Victoria – and this is the only time they will ever be for sale.

Castlemaine, November. The narrow staircase up to the little workshop above the old saddlery on Mostyn Street creaks on every step. The window is open to the warm spring air, and up here it smells of warm solder, flux and strong tea. Along the wall stand tall wooden racks full of coloured glass – ruby red, bottle green, honey amber, a little cobalt blue. On the long workbench lie glass cutters, rolls of copper foil and paper patterns covered in pencil lines. And on every shelf stand small glass Christmas trees – some still bare, some missing a few panes, some already glowing. Delys bends over one of her last trees, the way she has done every morning since 1987. But this year is different. It is her last Christmas up here.

“I’m 68,” she says quietly. “My hands don’t want to do it any more. The joints ache, and the arthritis is getting worse every year.” She rubs her fingers. Decades of cutting and fitting tiny pieces of glass have left their mark. “But that’s not the only reason. The world has changed. Hardly anyone pays for real handwork now. Everything is mass-made. My way of working is slowly disappearing.”

39 years, more than 9,000 lamps – and not one little tree ever sold

Delys has done the sums. In 39 years she has cut, foiled, soldered and finished more than 9,000 stained glass lamps, lampshades and window panels. Every single one went through her hands. But there is one piece she never put a price on. “The first little tree I made for my mum, in December 1987,” she says. “She put it in her front window, and the neighbours came knocking to ask where it came from. So the next year I made a few more – for the neighbours, for the church, for the teachers at the primary school.” She smiles. “And somehow it never stopped. Every December, about forty little trees. I gave every single one away.”

What makes Delys’s Window Tree so special

It isn’t only the colours. It’s the way each little tree is built: like a tiny church window that has been folded into the shape of a fir tree – made to be lit every evening, not something off a conveyor belt.

The tree rises in four layered tiers, each one made of small diamond-shaped panes in ruby red, emerald, mint, honey amber and gold, with a few pieces of sky blue in between. Every pane is framed by a dark lead line, just like a stained glass window in an old church. On top sits a golden five-pointed star, and the whole tree stands on a short, dark, carved-look trunk with a round base wrapped in holly leaves and red berries. Inside sits a warm LED. When it is switched on, the light shines through every single pane, and the tree throws little patches of red, green and gold onto the table and the wall around it – the way sunlight falls through a church window on a late afternoon. At just 18 centimetres tall and 11 centimetres wide, it fits on a windowsill, a bedside table, a sideboard or a bookshelf. It runs on a simple USB cable – plug it into any USB port or USB plug, and it glows.

The result is a lamp that does more than “on” and “off”. It turns a dark window, a quiet corner or a bedside table into a small, glowing piece of Christmas – every evening, all season long.

“Some families have put my tree in their window every December for over 30 years”

Delys reaches under the workbench and pulls out an old biscuit tin. Inside are hundreds of Christmas cards. “Thank-you notes,” she says. “Every year, after Christmas, they come.” She takes out a card dated 2004. It reads: “Dear Delys, your little tree has stood in our front window every December since the Christmas you gave it to us, the year our Jacinta was born. She is nine now and she won’t let anyone else switch it on. It still glows just as beautifully as on the first night.”

There is a simple reason these little trees last: care instead of speed. Big factories are built for volume. Delys works on one tree at a time. Every Window Tree takes about six hours – cutting each pane, wrapping its edges, soldering every seam, fitting the light and the final check under the lamp.

The end of an era – and one last chance

On 5 December, exactly 39 years after she first unlocked the door, Delys will close her workshop for good. “There’s no one to take over. Nobody wants to learn this kind of work any more – it takes years before you really have it in your hands.” Since January, she has made one last batch of her little trees. 357 of them are still standing on her shelves. The last ones that will ever pass through her hands.

And for the first time in 39 years, she is selling them. “It never felt right to put a price on them,” she says. “But I can’t give away four hundred trees. And I want them to go to homes where people really love them – people who understand how much work goes into a piece like this.” So she made a clear special price on every tree – one that barely covers the glass, the copper foil and the solder. “The six hours of work are my gift,” she says. “My grandkids Tahnee (24) and Brodie (27) are helping me sell them online – at my age I’ve no idea how all that internet business works,” she adds with a laugh.

Brodie also came up with the name. “He said: Nan, half the town has one of your trees in the front window. It’s the Window Tree,” Delys says. The name stuck. And for so many families in Castlemaine, a little lamp became a small December ritual: when it finally gets dark on those long summer evenings, the tree goes on in the window – and everyone who walks past knows that Christmas has come to that house.

What sets Delys’s Window Tree apart:

What real customers say about the Window Tree

“The perfect present for the people you really love”

Her customer Leanne S. (49) from Maldon agrees: “I gave my mum a Window Tree two weeks ago. She had tears in her eyes – not because of the lamp itself, but because she could feel straight away how much love and work had gone into it. She has lived around Castlemaine all her life and always wanted one of Delys’s trees in her own window. Now she switches hers on every evening and says: you can’t put a price on that feeling.”

Where can you buy Delys’s Window Tree?

Delys’s Window Tree is only available through Backroad Goods – an online shop that specialises in real handwork from selected makers. Her grandkids Tahnee and Brodie run Delys’s own little corner of the shop there. Only there will you get the original Window Tree from her workshop. Similar-looking lamps from mass production have started to appear on Amazon and other big sites. At first glance they may look alike, but they have nothing to do with Delys’s work.

Only this Christmas – then it’s over

Delys will lock her workshop door for the last time on 5 December. “By Christmas I’d like every one of these little trees to be glowing in somebody’s window. After that, it really is the end,” she says quietly. She gives a wistful smile. “39 years. It’s been a lovely time.”

If you would like one of the original Window Trees from Delys’s final batch, don’t wait too long. With the special price and so much demand, the remaining stock is not expected to last. Tahnee and Brodie will keep posting them after the workshop closes – but only until the last tree is gone. After that, her most-loved design will never be made again.

It is the last chance to bring a piece of real handwork into your home – before Delys’s little glowing trees are gone for good.

The verdict

The Window Tree is the Christmas lamp people fall in love with. It is made by hand in Delys’s workshop and feels like a small, glowing church window for your home – with warm, colourful light that makes a windowsill, a sideboard or a bedside table instantly cosier.

A feel-good piece with real heart – lovingly designed, well made, thought through – and every evening a small moment of Christmas magic when the Window Tree starts to glow in the summer dusk. Thank you, Delys!

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