Ornament Review: A Visit from Santa Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition - 2013 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Cute ornament with Santa and his first five animals friends.

Cons: Size, weight, and the bears seams

The Bottom Line:

Celebrate five years

With Santa, five animals

It's cuteness times five

Celebrating Five Visits with Santa

Hallmark likes to mark milestones for some of their series ornaments.  I've noticed they don't do this for all of them, and I haven't figured out why they pick the series they do to spotlight.  But in 2013, they released a limited edition ornament for A Visit From Santa's Fifth Anniversary.

This series features Santa visiting various animals.  It's a really cute series, and I've been enjoying collecting it.  For the fifth anniversary piece, the combined all five of those animals into one giant ornament.

Santa is standing in the middle of this circle of animals.  He's wearing a traditional red coat and hat.  Each ornament in the series features a different trim to the coat, and this time it's blue with a zig zag pattern.

On Santa's right are the first two animals from the series, the polar bear and the deer.  The polar bear has an obvious seam to him, but it doesn't bother me so much this time around since the original ornament did as well.  Santa is holding out in right hand to scratch the deer under the chin.  His right arm is up to hold the snowy owl that was in the third ornament in the series.  On Santa's left side are the final two animals so far, a fox and a squirrel.

Each ornament in the series has been very cute individually.  Santa's interaction with the animals has been charming.  That holds true with this ornament.  Even with all five animals crowded in together, it still looks very cute and almost cuddly.

Of course, to get all five of those animals together, the ornament winds up being rather large.  It has a good two inch diameter, so be sure to find a large spot for it on your tree.  It's also a bit on the heavy side, so you'll want to be sure you find a steady branch to put it on.

The animals are perfectly balanced around Santa, so when you slip a hook through the loop on top of Santa's hat, you'll find that the ornament balances perfectly.

With all the animals around Santa, it also has a nice wide base, so if you want to set it out to be displayed somewhere, you don't need to worry about it falling over on its own.

The size, weight, and the seam in the bear are all potential flaws in the ornament.  The size and weight can't be helped.  After all, how are you going to get all those animals in one ornament without making it this big?  The seam is definitely something they could have fixed, however.

Even so, I was happy to add A Visit From Santa's Fifth Anniversary ornament to my collection.  It takes the cuteness factor of the others in the series and ups it by five.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Visits from Santa.

Original Price: $17.95