Ornament Review: Cool Icicles #3 - Nutcracker - 2015 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Traditional nutcracker fused with an icicle

Cons: Very green, so will blend in with tree

The Bottom Line:
Cracking and crunching

Nutcracker closes series

Wish it were not green

Cracking the Ice in the Final Icicle

I was not surprised when Hallmark announced that 2015 would feature the final ornament in the Cool Icicles series.  Was I happy?  No.  But seeing how poorly the first two did in sales, I knew that series hadn’t caught on, so it would have been a poor business decision to keep it going past #3, the minimum for a series.  Fortunately, we do get one final Christmas icon – a Nutcracker.

This is a very traditional looking nutcracker.  He’s painted green, and from the waist up, he looks just like any other nutcracker you could buy.  He’s got a hat, white hair, and gold trim where you’d expect it.  However, it’s that bottom half that makes this series different.  The bottom half is an opaque going to clear icicle with ridges and a point at the bottom.

The way the ornaments in this series catch the light in the icicle part is wonderful, and it’s something I’ve enjoyed with the first two and know I’ll enjoy with this one as well.  The look is perfect, and I do love nutcrackers so I’m glad they got that right.  About my only real complaint with the ornament is the color.  Green will blend into the tree too much.  I wish they’d gone with red so it would stand out more.  That also feels like a more traditional nutcracker color to me.  I’m actually a little surprised they went with green.  Don’t misunderstand, I do love the color and think the ornaments looks great, but I just know it will get lost on the tree.

No, this isn’t a working nutcracker.  The mouth doesn’t move, as you can tell by how the beard is attached.  We do have a crack around the mouth and the handle in the back, which is again glued into place.

Since the ornament comes to a point at the bottom, there is no way to stand the ornament up, so you have to hang it to display it.  Fortunately, that isn’t an issue since, when you slip a loop through the hook on the top of the ornament, you’ll find that it hangs perfectly straight.

Being the third in the series, you’ll find a 3 in a Christmas tree hidden on the back of the nutcracker’s head.  It’s very small, but it is there if you look for it.

I can think of several other Christmas icons I would have liked to see as part of this series.  It’s too bad the series never caught on because I think it could have been great for many years.

But that was not to be.  With the series wrapped up with the Nutcracker, we will have to let the Cool Icicles that could have been melt away.

Like what you see here?  These are the earlier Cool Icicles ornaments.