Hallmark Ornaments are serious business! Yay for Hallmark's ornament premiere event!

Today’s post will be a post about stuff. As you can probably guess I am a fan of stuff like manga, Hello Kitty, and figurines. But alas my obsession with stuff does not stop with the wonderful world of anime and Japan. No I have another crazy weak spot too that has probably cost me hundreds of dollars. So what is this wallet killing obsession?

Ornaments.

Now I could frightened people further with my love of Hello Kitty and talk about my 6 foot tree filled to capacity with Hello Kitty. But that would be cheating and I did say this post was not anime/Hello Kitty related. So I will leave the Hello tree for another day.

Nope, this post is about my crazy love for Hallmark ornaments. Yes I am well aware that they are expensive and addictive and most people who love Hallmark ornaments are middle age housewives. I understand all of that and yet I still can’t get enough of them.

And yes this is July. I realize that the acceptable time to start thinking about Christmas is about 5 months from now. But I don’t make the rules. I am merely a victim of this highly complicated scheme to make Christmas last all year long and make buy Christmas ornaments acceptable when it is 121 degrees outside. So don’t judge me people just because I made sure to get the Dream Book at my local Hallmark and marked the Hallmark Ornament Premiere event on my calendar.




What is the Hallmark Ornament Premiere event? Well that is a good question. Really it is Hallmark’s way of milking more money out of people. What they do is release special ornaments in very limited quantities during the summer time and offer special incentives to people to come to their store that day. This makes the limited edition ornaments hard to come by and apparently make people nuts. Why they don’t release these special ornaments during a normal time like October or November I don’t know.

But what I do know is that last year, when I went online to see the new Hallmark ornaments I saw two Precious Moments Princess ornaments and only one in the store. I learned that the Snow White one was only released during the Premiere event and was released in limited quantities. Another one of my loves (obsessions) is Precious Moments figurines so when my love of Hallmark Ornaments and Precious Moments came together I had to act.

So this brings us the reason to why I woke up at the crack of dawn (for me anyway) so I could stand in line to pay 24 dollars for an overpriced (but extremely cute) ornament. They MADE me do it!!!! I was sure my husband would call me crazy but since he has seen the lengths I go to after Christmas to get 50 percent off ornaments I am sure nothing surprises him now. Now on to my day and to my new treasures!


When I said I got up at the crack of dawn I meant 7:45. But given that I get up at like 1 pm on my days off/late work days it felt like the crack of dawn. I zombied into some clothes and got most of my breakfast into my mouth. Then it was time to drive myself to the nearest Hallmark store. I got to encounter some LOVELY women who were having a mental meltdown because the mall security guard hadn’t unlocked this part of the mall (as the mall usually opens at 9/10 and it was now 8:30). I tried to drown out their complaints as we formed a line. Yes, formed a line. Her family was number one and I was number 2. Yay for complaints? My mom joined me later and tried to tease me about the lack of line but soon more people showed up…WITH BAGS. X_x Seriously people. I am only here for the limited edition ornaments. The other ones can wait until after Christmas, you know when they are 50 percent off.

At any rate the doors opened and about 20 middle aged women rush the store and I had to bounce in before there was a stampede. Hallmark decided the best place to put these special limited edition ornaments on the side of the wall, where no one could see them. I nearly had my own meltdown when I couldn’t find my precious.

But I did and here it is!!! Yay Belle!

Favorite Disney princess ever (cause Mulan isn't a princess).

Close up of the cuteness.

Isn’t it the cutest thing you ever saw?! Of course it is, why am I asking you such a question. And yes I really paid $24.50 for a tiny ornament that I will only see for about 35 days out of the year. But it is LIMITED EDITION. They sucked me in my friends. SUCKED ME IN. It was totally worth getting up at the butt crack of dawn to make sure I got this awesome ornament.

And what arrived Friday morning at my house? Why it is last year’s limited edition Hallmark Precious Moments ornament. Because you know, I had no idea that these events actually existed and that Hallmark was playing some kinda weird mind game by making us buy ornaments in July.

It is a Hallmark kinda of week.

What is special about Ms. Snow White is that she cost me less than I would have had to pay in the store! So really I didn’t miss out anything. Free shipping and no tax? XD Plus it was a limited edition item making it worth more already? My lucky day indeed.

MMM 50 percent off deals.

Rounding out my current collection is the Cinderella couple ornament from last year. Only this one was a normal release and this I was able to get it the day after Christmas at 50 percent off. XD

The happy trio all together.

I have to wait for October to see you and December to own you. :(

Here is the normal Precious Moments Hallmark Ornament for this year. Ariel is simply too cute and it will be difficult to wait until December 26th to have her. Ever since Precious Moments started releasing a Disney line I wanted to have every figurine for myself. But since that would seriously put me in debt I can be satisfied with having a mini version of them all. XD It’s almost like I can’t wait until 2010 to see what other two new ornaments will be released!

The snowflake dangles above Pooh when hung on a tree.

But today was not only about Belle. I also picked up two other limited edition ornaments since I met a personal tip goal this week. That and I am just greedy. Pooh is on the small size but adorable none the less. And random Eskimo dude is a cute series so I decided to shell out the money for him too.

So after some more shopping with my mother (which included the BIGGEST crowd of people at Plato’s closet and rude people pushing my mom around at the flea market) I made it home to nap before work. When I woke up BAM a package had arrived in the mail. What could it be?!

Fuzzy picture is fuzzy!

Today is happy Hallmark day to me!! XD Yes this is another E-bay purchase where the cost of the ornament was less than if I had bought it in the store. Now I simply LOVE penguins. Penguins are beyond cute in almost every form. I get this particular penguins series at Hallmark and was BUMMED to learn I missed out on its limited edition version. But then I realizes that E-bay is my friend and I could own it as long as I was patient. Woot for deals.

Behold the cuteness!!!

Now it might sound like I have a lot of ornaments and I spend a lot of money on them. I do. Even at 50 percent off I spent 130 dollars last year on ornaments. But I am not the only crazy person. Or shall I say there are other people crazier than I am. At my store there was a couple who both had bags filled after 10 minutes. They probably got more but I was done with my purchase and left. So if I bought around 15 (some are presents) ornaments last year at 130 dollars…I don’t even want to think about how much those people spent.

But in the end it is just money. Some people want to eat fancy food and other people want to wear fancy clothes. I will just settle with the 99 cents menu and my new 2 dollar shirt that was brand new with the tags saying 39.99. That way I can splurge on figurines and ornaments. XD At the end of the day I am happy and shall dance around with my new treasures. If you want these treasures for yourself I would hurry to your nearest Hallmark store before they run out! Happy hunting.