Kurt Adler, who died Thursday at age 83, was the country’s best-known importer and wholesaler of upscale Christmas ornaments, a man who had a big effect on the look of what purports to be the most traditional of holidays. He died of the effects of Parkinson’s disease and a heart condition, his son, Clifford, said.

Beginning in the early 1950s, when the typical American Christmas tree was decked merely with tinsel, cheap glass balls from the five-and-dime store, cookies, and other bric-a-brac, Adler began offering imported European hand-blown glass balls, hand-crafted figurines, and large combination stocking/avdent calendars. He even developed an improved fake Christmas tree.

Adler was a native of Bavaria, an area with a reputation in the American imagination for sumptuous Christmas celebration, although as Jews, the Adlers did not celebrate the holiday. In 1937, shortly after graduating from high school, Adler came to America under the sponsorship of an uncle in New Jersey; the rest of his family managed to escape Germany the following year.

After finding work at Brillo, the steel wool company, Adler was drafted into the Army, but managed to break his toe while in basic training at Louisiana – family lore has it that he was sneaking out of his tent late one night to take a shower – and spent the balance of World War II in Honolulu, where he honed his tennis game and learned a bit about the import/export business.

After the war, Adler settled in New York and set himself up exporting canned fruit, steel wool, umbrellas, and toys to Europe and South America. After a few years, as Europe’s economy recovered, Adler switched to importing goods from Germany and Eastern Europe, and by the early 1950s he was concentrating on seasonal merchandise. At first his business was a suitcase full of samples; eventually, he opened a showroom on Broadway.

As labor conditions shifted, the company’s suppliers began being situated in Asia, and especially in China, and Adler and his staff traveled abroad often to keep an eye on production. “If we don’t keep watching, that Santa Claus will wind up looking Chinese in two minutes,” Adler told United Press International in 1984.

Kurt S. Adler Inc./Santa’s World is today a leader in the “trim-a-tree” industry, with 18 showrooms nationwide and more than 20,000 items in inventory. In addition to offering hand-crafted items, the company has been among the leaders in creating licensed decorations, sporting Disney, PBS, and NFL themes among many others. Along with his artificial Black Forest Christmas tree, Adler specialized in high-end snow globes, beginning in the 1960s. He also introduced fiber-optic Christmas trees. Adler was a member of the National Ornament an Electrical Lights Association hall of fame.

Even after his company had become very successful, Adler professed amazement at his customers’ enthusiasm. “Actually, they go berserk,” Adler told UPI. “Families who never see each other 364 days of the year come rushing home. Christmas is basically very nostalgic. Otherwise, you could never explain why people buy all the decorations.” Adler himself normally went to Miami for Christmas.

He liked to say that his business had experienced only one distinctly unmerry Christmas, in 1973, when President Nixon encouraged Americans to save energy by cutting back on Christmas lights; business dropped by as much as 50%.

In recent years, Adler had noted a few new trends in Christmas decor. Animatronic ornaments were increasingly popular, as were depictions of Santa in various non-traditional settings – ethnic Santa as a firefighter, for instance. Blinking lights and colored lights were in decline. Last year, in commemoration of September 11, 2001, Adler’s company introduced an 18-inch musical nutcracker that depicted a firefighter and played “God Bless America.”

Although slowed by illness – for most of his life he had been an enthusiastic tennis player, and the Adlers were named Tennis Family of the Year in 1980 – Adler until recently went to work daily. His children continue to run the business.

Kurt Adler
Born June 19, 1921, in Bavaria; died November 25 of Parkinson’s disease and a heart problem; survived by his wife, Marianne, his children, Howard, Clifford, Richard, and Karen Kaplin, and nine grandchildren.