The Good: Cute, Generally decent sculpt, Well-painted, Neat glitter accents
The Bad: Very plastic looking, Poor balance
The Basics: The 2015 "Season's Treatings" ornament is cute, but not terribly impressive, making for a good low-cost Hallmark ornament!
My wife has been building a Hallmark ornament collection over the last few years, which mirrors my genre ornament collection from Hallmark. My wife's collection is more broad than mine; she comes out with me on Ornament Premiere Weekend and goes through the Dreambook since she started her collection and she picks out the cute ones that capture her fancy. This year, in addition to her Disney and movie-themed ornaments, she gravitated toward a couple of non-genre ornaments. This year's Season's Treatings ornament grabbed her and so I picked it up for her.
The 2015 Season's Treatings ornament is a food-based ornament that is generally cute, but does not live up to some of the other ornaments my wife has picked up. It looks a little cheaper than other Hallmark ornaments, despite having some neat coloring accents. The result is an ornament that is affordable, but more mediocre than exceptional.
Basics
The Season's Treatings ornament is an ornament that features a pile of star-shaped cookies on a plate that forms a Christmas tree. The top of the tree has a yellow star cookie and the plate is accented by the star-shaped cookie cutter leaning against the bottom of the cookie-pile tree and a snowman cookie leaning up against the other side of the tree. The ornament, released in 2015, is a standard-release ornament that came out during Ornament Preview Weekend and it did not sell out at any of the Hallmark Gold Crown stores I went to.
Hallmark made a decent attempt to make a good ornament with the Season's Treatings ornament, but the ornament is very simple and clearly assembled. The snowman cookie looks like exactly what it is; a thin plastic snowman added to the ornament. Measuring two inches tall, one and fifteen-sixteenth inches in diameter, the "Season's Treatings" ornament is a small-sized Hallmark ornament. This is also one of the least expensive Hallmark ornaments. It originally retailed at $9.95, which makes it one of the most affordable Hallmark Keepsake ornaments released this year.
The Hallmark "Season's Treatings" ornament is made of thin plastic for the snowman, plate and star, though the rest of the cookie tree looks more durable. The painted details are consistently rendered, which is nice. The green on the cookies for the cookie tree are pearlescent, which makes for a more whimsical quality to the ornament. The snowman might look cheap for the thin plastic, but the paint job is incredible in its detailing. Even the plate looks nicely detailed with a good border on the plate. On the opposite side of the plate from the cookie-cutter is the neatly painted year stamp, indicating that this ornament was released in 2015.
Features
As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, "Season's Treatings" could have a sound effect, but it does not. Instead, this is a less-expensive option that is just made up of cute-looking cookie elements.
Balance
As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake "Season's Treatings" ornament is to be hung on a Christmas tree. And the "Season's Treatings" ornament is a good option for anyone who likes Christmas cookies. The ornament has the brass hook loop embedded into the top cookie, behind the star. While this allows the hook loop to be hidden, from that point, the Season's Treatings is poorly balanced. The ornament is front-heavy, so it looks like the plate is about to tip over!
Collectibility
Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (click here for that review!). Within a few years, every major franchise from Star Wars to A Nightmare Before Christmas to Indiana Jones started making Hallmark ornaments. "Season's Treatings" is a non-genre ornament that is actually part of an annual series. This is the seventh ornament in the Season's Treatings series and none of the primary-release ornaments from the set have not significantly appreciated (the repaints and limited edition versions have). There is no reason to expect that trend would not hold with the 2015 Season's Treatings ornament.
Overview
Fans of cute food, Christmas cookies, Hallmark ornaments, and generic Christmas ornaments are likely to thing the Season's Treatings ornament is affordable and cute, but given it seems to be a low-priority "buy" this year, one suspects most fans will be able to wait until the end of the season to pick it up.
For other non-genre Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2015 Barbie Celebration ornament set
2014 Sound The Trumpet ornament
2014 White Chocolate Moose ornament
7/10
For other ornament reviews, please visit my Ornament Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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