He’ll be broke for Christmas.
The so-called Ornament King — whose European glass-blown decorations once adorned presidential Christmas trees — has been forced to declare bankruptcy due to what he calls a legal nightmare.
Businessman Christopher Radko, a household name famous for his eponymous collectible ornaments, said a judicial brouhaha over a trademark dispute has left him over $1.3 million in the red.
“I spent my whole life bringing joy and magic to people and their Christmas trees, and now it’s come to an abrupt end, I can’t believe it,” Radko told The Post in an exclusive interview.
“This is truly a nightmare before Christmas.”
The dispute — with ornament behemoth Rauch Industries — is over the use of his own legal, and trademarked, name.
Rach bought the “Christopher Radko” brand in 2005, and the longtime ornate ornament designer returned to the biz when he was legally allowed to in 2022, he said.
But Rach claims Radko violated a settlement agreement 36 times over the use of his name, and is seeking $126,000 in penalties, plus almost $1.2 million in what Radko called “irrational and unsupported legal fees,” in a letter to a federal judge this week.
“I am devastated,” Radko told The Post. “This is a sad end to my 40-year Christmas legacy.
“I guess the Grinch does win in today’s cutthroat world,” he said. “All I’ve ever wanted is to share my heart through the European handmade ornaments I designed, but now my dreams are shattered.”
Rauch’s attorney wrote in response to the court that Radko’s letter was “riddled with baseless inaccuracies,” adding that the company was only seeking to collect the arbitration payout it was granted earlier this year.
“There is no merit to any allegations that Rauch is responsible for shutting down Mr. Radko’s company. All Rauch has done is ask Mr. Radko to compete fairly, which he has continuously refused to do,” Rauch’s attorney, Megan K. Bannigan, wrote in a statement to The Post.
Radko, once called the “Czar of Christmas” and the “Ornament King,” started his business after knocking over the family Christmas tree decades ago — destroying his grandma’s cherished heirloom ornaments.
Guilt-ridden, Radko said his search for new heirloom-quality artisanal ornaments led him to start his own import wholesale shop in 1986, teaming up with glassblowers in the old country and designing the seasonal decorations himself.
“By the year 2000,” he wrote in his letter to the court, “my sales had reached $65 million,” as well as the attention of the elite, including Princess Diana, Bruce Springsteen, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, Elton John, Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
He was even invited to decorate the Kennedy Center, White House and Vice President Al Gore’s residence in 1997, the New York Times reported.
To this day, his ornate, colorful and cheerful designs — carefully sourced from European mom-and-pop glass blowers — fetch hundreds on the collectors market.
But life’s challenges forced Radko to sell his namesake brand in 2005 to Rauch, a “goliath” in the ornament industry, he said.
Two years later, he stopped designing for the Christopher Radko brand after he claimed promises to retain production in Europe and keep his brand out of big-box retailers were broken.
Radko signed a 13-year non-competition agreement. He started a new company called “Ornament King” when it expired in 2022, and sold over $1 million in merchandise at his first trade show that year, according to The Washington Post, with new fans including Kylie Jenner and Adele.
But Rauch immediately pursued him over trademark violation allegations, he claimed.
The company pursued an “aggressive legal campaign, harassment, and depositions, draining my startup’s profits through ongoing litigation,” despite a federal ruling affirmed he could use his name in a non-trademark manner, Radko wrote.
Ultimately, Radko said he was led to sign an “even more onerous agreement” with Rauch “that severely limited how my customers and I could use my name,” after facing “lacking resources and stress-related declining health,” according to the letter.
“In practice, I found the 40-page agreement confusing and riddled with traps” — with the latter sparking at least one of the 36 alleged violations due to Rauch “policing my social media,” he wrote.
One supposed violation came from using his name to announce a breast cancer ornament in honor of his cancer-stricken sister, his letter claims.
“It is ironic that the Goliath-sized Rauch Industries, branding itself as the “Christopher Radko Company,” seems intent on pushing me, the artist Christopher Radko, a man just trying to make a living, out of business,” he said.
“To me, it’s like telling SANTA ‘you’re fired!’”
Bannigan, the company’s attorney, said that Radko had “repeatedly disrespected and failed to meaningfully acknowledge binding agreements, forcing Rauch to pursue legal action to enforce its rights and protect the brand it purchased from him.”
“Rather than respect the agreement he signed and the judicial process, Mr. Radko now makes a slew of false and irrelevant allegations against Rauch to continue to harm its business,” she added.
