WATERFORD CRYSTAL is selling Christmas tree decorations in support of American troops serving “overseas”. The company website advertises the product asking its American customers to “support our forces at home and abroad with the Waterford Crystal USO Trees for the Troops ornament.”
Waterford will donate $1 (83c) from the sale of every ornament, which has a retail price of $59, to United Services Organisation, a charity that supports American troops and their families.



The firm is also manufacturing crystal menorah, the Jewish candelabrum. A spokesman for the company confirmed that the crystal trees and menorahs were manufactured in Ireland.

The Irish company has also donated two crystal chandeliers in the shape of Christmas trees which will visit wounded US troops at undisclosed locations this Christmas before being auctioned for the charity in America later this year.

The USO was founded to bring entertainment to US troops in Europe during the second world war, and is associated with Hollywood icons such as Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe. The USO mission “is to provide morale, welfare and recreation-type services to uniformed military personnel and their families”.

Apart from the donations, a shipment of Waterford Crystal Christmas trees and menorah has been sent to wounded American troops overseas.

A USO spokesman said the collaboration was a first for the Irish luxury goods firm.

Home Depot, the US DIY store, recently made a $250,000 donation to the charity.

In launching the company’s first-half results last week, which showed a 7% fall in profits, Waterford Wedgwood chief executive Peter Cameron highlighted a string of new, contemporary ranges being introduced by the group across its brands, including a “Connoisseur Collection at Waterford Crystal, Home Designs at Rosenthal and link-ups with Jasper Conran at Wedgwood and Gordon Ramsay at Royal Doulton”.

Cameron has been charged with re-invigorating sales in America particularly, a crucial market for crystal sales. Apart from the hook-up with USO, the company is believed to be courting a trendy US designer to gear its crystal products to a younger market.