I’m a member of Hallmark’s Keepsake Ornament Club; but I must confess: as much as I love collecting Christmas ornaments and anticipate the ornament catalog’s arrival each year, before it arrives there’s also a small part of me that secretly hopes most of the selections won’t impress me. That way I won’t end up tempted to spend too much money indulging my hobby…again.
I no longer have my fat factory paycheck to rely on. I’ve just charged $700 to my MasterCard to get my trees trimmed. Then there’s a car insurance payment due in three weeks. Home insurance a month after that. Around fifteen hundred if both are paid in full for the year. I’d like to afford a bicycle what with the high price of gas. Not to mention that it would be a great source of exercise.
And, yes, I know I could just buy the ornaments between July and December whenever I have available cash. However, the big 15% premiere day discount is in July. If I’m going to buy other brands of ornaments like Canon Falls I must limit myself to five ornaments.
Even before I got the catalog I decided to stop buying most series ornaments. I’ll always buy one of Mary’s Angels because they’re always well done and very affordable. (Of course, as a club member I got my angel as a free gift this year.) But I’m tired of series like Snow Buddies. Same snowman cozying up with a different animal every year. When is it going to end? When he’s cuddling a possum or a long-eared bat? Same thing with Toymaker Santa. Every year the same Santa with a different toy. The Snowball and Tuxedo series? They’re best friends. They frolic. I get it. But I don’t need to buy another one.
So I opened the catalog. I zoom past pages 4 and 5. The Santa Claus collection of ornaments on 6 and 7 is such a ripoff of the folksy stuff that August Moon has done better.
Page 8’s Let it Shine ornament, a tiny angel with a wand peering over a small candle, is lovely. It’s been decades since candles with melting wax dripping off the sides were decoration subject matter. Seems like I remember it was popular in the seventies.
More pages and I clear the Disney, the Peanuts and the Warner Bros. stuff. On pages 12 and 13, a toy train as well as a teddy bear riding a toy pony catch my eye. But I already have toy train and pony ornaments. And I’m sure I have an ornament of a white teddy bear with a top hat somewhere too. Nice try, Hallmark.
Oh, and can you someday please get the rights to some other Rankin-Bass Christmas specials? How many ornaments based on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer can you make? (Same thing goes for the Grinch.) Can you please get the rights to A Year Without a Santa Claus so I can finally have Snow Miser and Heat Miser ornaments? And the Winter Warlock from Santa Claus is Coming to Town would be great too.
But then around page 17 and 18, I hit a serious speed bump–or should I say, snow drift–of snowman cuteness. Louie D. Lightly is nice. Not wowed by the scenery at the bottom, but he’s got a good face and interesting hat.
Ooops. The Friendly Snowmen look good too.
What is it about snowpeople that for years ornament artists have kept finding creative ways to keep them looking so (forgive the pun) cool? Yet there are the gingerbread people who stay much the same from year to year, except for maybe a different color icing outline. I love the jack-in-the-box ornament series, but gingerbread man-in-a-box? Meh. Why couldn’t they have made it a gingerbread clown?
Maybe it’s because snow people are three dimensional and more flexible, and not a food source. They don’t own edible real estate. If someone could write a great holiday song or story about a misfit gingerbread man who saves Christmas that might start the wheels of inspiration turning and boost their status.
And then I turn to page 18, and it’s full on candy theme assault. Candy has made a comeback in recent years with several ornament makers. Visions of gumdrops dancing on my purchase list. Sweet Little Soldier? It must be mine. Oh yes, it must.
Santa’s Sweet Ride looks like a must-purchase too. It’s Santa flying a plane made out of friggin candy. Little imaginative touches on both ornaments such as the cookie wafer roof and the main body of the plane being an ice cream cone really sell it for me. So cool. Santa is magic.
Onward I go and notice Hallmark still won’t drop the impractical pull string idea for motion ornaments. I’ve purchased a couple and worry about the string eventually breaking after a few pulls. What’s wrong with a wind-up key or a battery powered push button model? Is the string supposed to have some sort of nostalgic or toy-like quality? It just doesn’t seem very durable. On the other had, that’s less ornaments I’m tempted to buy.
Lily Fairy on page 20 is part of a series. But I like fairies when they’re well done. Maybe this one won’t look as cute on display at the store as it is in the picture. If this is going to be a long running series it would be nice to have some racial diversity. I have black and hispanic angels. Why not the fairies?
The carousel tiger and kangaroo look interesting. The Nick and Christopher series is fun, but I don’t need another one.
Uh-oh. Must…resist…snow…people…cuteness. Trimming the Tree and Season’s Treatings on page 23 are nice. The polar bear with a box of 64 Crayola crayons? Nice, but I’ll pass.
Ah, baby and toddler ornaments. I’m safe for three pages. But page 27 rules with a sneak attack of unexpected adorable from Sue Tague. $37.50 for the set of three. If I had to choose just one it would have to be the two kids making the snowman.
Fisher-Price Play Family Farm ornament could be a must buy if the detail is good. I’ll wait and see. That and the Fisher-Price Play Family House were my favorite toys when I was child.
I don’t need the Teacher Rules ornament, but the one Katrina Bricker designed is awesome.
Whew! Disney and Warner Bros and storybook characters. I’m safe for a few pages. Yada, yada, family and chick stuff.
All the way to page 42. Peek-Buster Elf looks more like Peek-Bully Elf. I’m still waiting for elves to make a comeback in the ornament world. Maybe the Cheer-O-Meter ornament. I’ll wait to see what both look like on display. Not digging the Spin-A-Majig ornaments, which is a good thing.
Playing it Cool and Snow on the Go on page 45 seem interesting. I’m hoping that’s an ice coffee the snowman is carrying.
More pages of movie tie-ins, superheroes and, of course, more Disney. Ornaments for pets….ornaments benefiting charities…
Page 54 and I like the Santa and Hippo ornament because ”I Wanna Hippopotamus for Christmas” by Gayla Peevey is my favorite Christmas novelty song. It’s the anti-”Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”.
Maybe the Magic Eight Ball and View Master ornaments. Maybe not. I would definitely buy a Lite-Brite or Operation ornament.
The mini-arcade Pac-Man just might be the hot ornament of the year because it lights up and makes all the Pac-Man sounds. I won’t buy it though.
More pages. I guess as long as there are fans of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind they’ll never stop making ornaments for them. Same thing with Star Wars and Star Trek.
A lot of cool items on pages 62 and 63, but more toy-like than Christmas-y to me. I loved Statler and Waldorf on the Muppet Show, but I don’t want to have them on my trees. The Space Ghost and Jetsons ornaments are something I’d keep around my computer.
Then it’s cars, trains, and motorcycles. I glance at the Keepsake Ornament Club selections on page 70 and the limited quantity ornaments on the inside back cover and then I’m done! Whew!
Overall good selection. I was expecting some sort of green-themed ornament such as the recycling symbol made to look like a wreath. I’m still waiting for them to do something more creative with coffee and lattes.
Right now I have twelve on my list that I’d like to buy, but it would cost me $187, but that’s without the premiere day discount. Hopefully, by July when the ornaments premiere, I’ll be down to five. Or six.
