Ornament Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - 2022 Hallmark Release

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Fun representation of the fifth Harry Potter cover

Cons: The candles look a little odd sticking out of the cover

The Bottom Line:

Fifth Harry Potter

Candles don’t quite translate well

Overall still good

The Order of the Phoenix is Ready to Hang on Your Tree

Five years ago, Hallmark started releasing ornaments based on the Harry Potter book covers.  While I had pretty much given up collecting Harry Potter ornaments by that point, these ornaments spoke to the book lover in me, so I started them.  We are now at the ornament for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and it’s another winner.

If you are familiar with the original American covers for the series, you won’t be surprised at what we get here.  The cover is blue.  The front features Harry with a wand surrounded by candles.  He’s looking sideways so he’s looking out at us.  The title is up at the top.  If you continue on around, the rest of the cover appears on the sides and back.  The ornament isn’t as thick as the real book is, but that’s okay.  We want this to settle into the branches of our tree, not stick out so far from it, right?

As usual, elements of the front cover are coming out at us.  Harry is one of them, as are some of the candles that are in the foreground of the picture.  Honestly, that threw me for a bit.  I honestly thought they were skeleton fingers at first.  I had to look at the book’s cover again to see what it really was.  Obviously, this is a case where two-dimensional art didn’t quite translate to three-dimensional art.

The other thing I just noticed is that J. K. Rowling’s name doesn’t appear anywhere on the ornament.  I’m not sure if I just haven’t noticed in the past or if this is the first time they took it off.  If you look at the original cover, it makes sense that they couldn’t include it here.  Her name is down at the bottom, and that would just be awkward since what it is written over is now popping out of the ornament at us.  I suspect this was the case with the earlier ornaments in this unofficial series and I just never noticed.

Since this is a book, you could set it out to be displayed.  I don’t think the candles would be too likely to break if it got knocked over.

I plan to hang this one on my tree.  It does tip forward ever so slightly when you hang it, but you have to be looking for it to notice that.

For the book lover who is a Harry Potter fan, these ornaments are so much fun.  If that’s you, grab Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix while you can.