Ornament Review: Up on the Housetop - Once Upon a Christmas #7 - 2017 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: More fun with Santa on Christmas Eve

Cons: Wish the lights on the eaves lit up

The Bottom Line:

Santa makes a stop

More music and fun light show

Series still delights

Time to Make a Delivery

It is rare that a Hallmark series combines to form one complete story, but that’s what we are getting with the Once Upon a Christmas series.  Each ornament shows us Santa as he goes about his Christmas Eve activities.  Up on the Housetop is the seventh addition to this fun series.

As you’d expect from the name, this ornament finds Santa on the roof of a house.  He’s got his bag of toys, and he’s standing next to a chimney ready to head inside to leave some presents.  The roof itself is snowy; we can even see how the snow is bunching under Santa’s feet.  There are lights under the eaves, so this is a house that must be all decked out for Christmas.  Like the others in the series, this ornament has a base that lights up, and that base is just under the eaves, so we get to see Santa and the chimney in great detail.

This series is part of Hallmark’s Magic Cord line.  As I just mentioned, the base lights up when you plug this into the cord.  You’ll also see a light inside the chimney start to flash.  Sadly, the Christmas lights under the eaves don’t light up; that would be a lot of fun.

There is a white button hidden in the roof of the house, and when you press it, it starts a show.  First, we get Santa talking about delivering the presence.  For the first time in this series, we get to hear someone else as the kids in the house giggle at one point.  Santa talks for about 15 seconds, and once he is done, the music really starts and the other ornaments connected to the magic cord light up again, and they all flash in time to the music, which is “Up on the Housetop.”  Surprised?  I’m not at all.  All told, between the talking and the music, you get almost 60 seconds of fun when you push the button.

The base of the ornament gives us a nice flat surface.  You could display this series in order and follow Santa’s progress in his busiest day of the year.  Or the loop for hanging this ornament is hiding in Santa’s bag.  You’ll be glad to find that the ornament hangs straight, although it is usually hard to get the ornaments in this series to hang straight since they are so large and the branches from the tree tilt them.

And, of course, you’ll find the 7 in a Christmas tree series marker on the bottom of the ornament.

There were several reasons I caved and started the Magic Cord, and this series was definitely one of them.  If you’ve been a fan, you’ll enjoy Up on the Housetop.

Don't miss the rest of the magic that is the Once Upon a Christmas series.

Original Price: $29.95