Ornament Review: Happy Halloween! #7 - Skeleton - 2019 Hallmark Ornament

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Cute but slightly creepy scene perfect for the season

Cons: Pumpkin itself could tie in better.

The Bottom Line:

Skeleton, graveyard

A bit creepy, mostly cute

A fun addition

Walking a Dog Past the Graveyard

I do not have enough creativity to do something like the Hallmark artists do.  Take the Happy Halloween! ornament series.  I’m not sure I can come up with too many monsters to include that they haven’t done yet, and I felt that way last year.  But when I saw that the 2019 entry would feature a skeleton, I couldn’t believe that I had missed such an obvious one.

This ornament in the series has a skeleton boy out walking his dog.  How do I know it is a boy?  I don’t.  It’s a skeleton.  The only clue we have is the blue baseball cap on his head.  But that cap to me screams boy.  It could be a girl or an adult for that matter, but it just feels like a boy.  Anyway, naturally, the dog is a skeleton as well with an orange collar around his neck.  Naturally, they are walking past a graveyard.  Heck, they are probably just going for a stroll around the block.  They are just outside the fence for the graveyard, and we can see headstones behind them.  There is a tree in the background and some bats flying against the sky which features a giant moon.

As always, this scene is framed by a pumpkin.  In this case, the pumpkin has his mouth wide open.  It looks to me like he is screaming, maybe seeing the walking skeleton frightened him.  It certainly would frighten me.  (Yes, probably even if it was Sid from the Family Skeleton Mysteries until I learned it was him.)

But the pumpkin is probably my biggest disappointment with the ornament.  In the past, I love the creative way the pumpkin has been changed to go with the theme of the year.  This year doesn’t feel nearly as creative.  Then again, there are only so many things you can do with a pumpkin mouth, right?  I’m probably expecting too much.

Overall, I do like this ornament.  Each entry has captured that slightly creepy but mostly cute feel, and this one does it perfectly again.  That’s another reason I feel like we’ve got a skeleton boy and his skeleton dog; it just feels cuter to me.

Like all good pumpkins, this one has a flat bottom, so you can set this out to be displayed if you so desire.  Since this is part of a series, the 7 in a Christmas tree series marker is on the bottom.  Or, if you have a place you like to hang Halloween ornaments, you can use the loop in the pumpkin’s stem.  When you do, you’ll find that the ornament tips back ever so slightly, but not enough to be an issue.

I’m still stumped on what other creatures we could encounter in this series.  Guess I’ll find out when the 2020 ornaments are announced.  Meantime, I will enjoy this year’s Happy Halloween! ornament.

Check out the rest of the Happy Halloween! ornaments.

Original Price: $15.99