Ornament Review: Toymaker Santa 15th Anniversary Limited Edition - 2014 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Great way to celebrate a 15 year old series

Cons: None for fans of the series

The Bottom Line:

These toys are complete

Santa is packing his bag

Here's to fifteen years

Santa Celebrates 15 years as a Toymaker by Packing Some in His Bag

Hallmark likes to mark anniversaries for their more popular ornament series with limited edition ornaments.  Since Toymaker Santa hits fifteen years in 2014, they released a great limited edition ornament to celebrate.

The ornament features the Santa we've all gotten to know from this series.  He's a little fat but very jolly, in fact his eyes are crinkled as he grins.  He's wearing a tan apron over a green shirt and red pants, and he's got a hammer in the side of his apron.

However, instead of making another toy, he's packing some toys he's made into his giant red bag to be all ready to load up his sleigh and leave for his Christmas Eve trip delivering toys.  In his hand, he's holding a teddy bear (entry #5), and already in the bag is a drum (#11), rocket, (#14), and jack-in-the-box (#13).  These toys are smaller than they originally were, but they have to be to all fit in the bag.

And I really like this ornament as a result.  Obviously, they couldn't include all fifteen toys, but the fact that they highlighted a few of them is great for the collector.  The focus is on some of the more recent entries, although I found the teddy bear interesting since he was just part of the wagon that I took to be the main toy in that year's entry.  Anyway, it fits in with the rest of the series since Santa looks like he always does.  I do like Santa here since he always looks like he's having so much fun no matter what toy he's currently testing.

Since Santa is standing behind his bag, it's very easy to see that the ornament sits on its own fairly easily.  You can display it on any flat surface and be reasonably certain that he will stay there all year long.

However, since he's an ornament, he's really designed to hang on your tree.  There's a little brass loop on the top of Santa's red hat.  Slip a hook through that, and you'll find that Santa tips back just a tad as you raise him in the air.  It's actually hardly noticeable unless you are looking for it, but the result is actually a better display than when the ornament is sitting.  The ornament still looks level, but Santa is facing out a bit more instead of down at the bag.

Since this was a limited edition ornament, fans of the series snapped it up at Premier a couple of weeks ago.  As a result, you'll have to start hunting on the secondary market if you want to add this piece to your collection, and I expect the value will rise until the new year if not longer.

That's why I am glad I was able to add the Toymaker Santa 15th Anniversary Limited Edition ornament to my collection this year.  It's the perfect way to celebrate fifteen years of making kid's Christmas wishes come true.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Toymaker Santa series.

Original Price: $17.95