Ornament Review: Chapel in the Woods - Candlelight Services #10 - 2007 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Simple church with cool windows

Cons: None worth noting

The Bottom Line:

Chapel in the woods

Lives up to its name - Simple

Yet still inviting

You'll Definitely Want to Spend Christmas Eve in this Cozy Little Chapel in the Woods

Sometimes, it amazes me what I wind up liking.  Take Chapel in the Woods.  This is the 10th entry in the Candlelight Services series.  It's simple.  But it's also one of my favorites.

The church itself is rather ordinary looking.  It's basically just a rectangle.  There is a belfry on top, and you can see the little bell hanging in it.  There's a small cross on top of that.  There are doors on both sides of the church.  The one on the front of the church is rather plain, but the one in the back of the church actually has a bit of a porch.  The church is blue and looks like it is made from wooden planks.  Despite the "woods" part of the name, the only tree around is a small evergreen on one side that has just a touch of snow on it.

It's some of the other touches that I love so much about this one.  Like many of its predecessors, there is a small sign outside the church.  Above the 2007 (representing the year the ornament came out), the sign advertises a midnight service.  All the churches in the series are supposed to represent churches having candlelight midnight services with the light glowing through their windows.  But this is the first one to actually reference that on the ornament itself.  I love that.  Frankly, I love the fact that we can also see the bell in the tower.

And the windows on this one are very cool.  They are rectangles with pointed orange not quite semi-circles above them.  When you stick a Christmas tree light in the back, the windows look like they are candles themselves.  That's just cool.

The white base on this ornament could be a tad bigger.  The tree is so close to the church it leans over ever so slightly.  It's still plenty big, however, letting the ornament sit flat.  Of course, on the bottom you can find the 10 in the Christmas tree Hallmark always uses on their series pieces.  I prefer to display this series on a flat surface, but if you decide to hang it, you'll find that it hangs just slightly to one side form the brass hook on the roof.  After a moment or two, you won't notice, however.

When looking at this church, I kind of wish the bigger porch were on the front.  And I wish the windows were bigger; however, that would ruin the effect of the windows looking like candles.

The church is rather plain, one of the plainest in the series.  But that actually works for it.  It reminds me of the small church I see in the small mountain towns out here in California.  Most of the ornaments in the series, while wonderful to look at, haven't had much connection to me on the west coast.  This one really does, and I love it for that reason.

So sometimes simple really is best.  Chapel in the Woods is proof of that.

Be sure to check out the other ornaments in the Candlelight Services series.

Original Price: $20.00