Ornament Review: Mario - 2017 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Captures Mario in action

Cons: Wish it featured a mushroom instead of a coin

The Bottom Line:

Jumping for a coin

Mario, ready for tree

Video game piece

Mario is Leaping onto Your Tree this Year

While I don’t play a lot of video games these days, I loved them as a kid.  In fact, I had an Atari 2600 and an original Nintendo.  As a result, I’ve been a fan of Mario and Luigi since they were just the Mario Brothers.  (Anyone else remember the original game that featured both of them?)  And yes, I’ve followed their adventures through their various Super incarnations as well.  So when Hallmark announced they had the license to do ornaments based on these characters, I was thrilled.  Naturally, I snapped up Mario as soon as I could.

The ornament captures Mario in action.  He’s dressed in his traditional red shirt and blue overalls.  He’s wearing a red hat with an M on it.  And he’s jumping.  You see, he’s under a question box, and he’s jumping to hit it.  What did he get?  Why it’s a coin coming out of the top of the box.

While I do like this ornament, I do wish they had changed one thing.  Why isn’t it a mushroom coming out of the box?  Yes, coins are more frequent, but a mushroom would be better, especially since they are doing Luigi as a limited ornament in October, and he has a coin as well.  Since they are doing both brothers, they could have done both a coin and a mushroom.  That’s my only complaint.  Anyone who has spent many happy hours playing these games will be as glad as I am to get this ornament.

As I mentioned earlier, Mario is jumping into the air to hit the box.  As a result, he won’t stand on his own.  However, the hook is perfectly places so that he will hang straight on your tree.

I will be curious to see how many of these characters they do over the next few years.  But they’ve started off with a winner.  Mario is a wonderful ornament.

Original Price: $15.95