Monday, August 7, 2023

Ornament Review: Uno - Family Game Night #10 - 2023 Hallmark Release

Stars: 4 out of 5
Pros: Popular card game makes for good ornament
Cons: Missing some details, final in series
The Bottom Line:
Uno is last one
Sorry to see series end
With missing details



We Get Uno Last Entry in the Family Game Night Series

While I’ve been saying I need to cut back on Hallmark ornaments, and I’ve been slowly stopping collecting various series, one series I wasn’t planning to stop was the Family Game Night series.  I enjoyed adding these games to my collection each year.  However, Hallmark decided to end the series this year.  They ended it with the classic card game Uno.

This is the only card game in the series, and part of me is a little surprised they ended with a card game.  But this is Uno.  It’s a classic that has been played by so many people over the years.  I get why they chose to include it.

In order to make this a little better ornament, they went with Uno Deluxe.  That gives us a bigger box to have as a background.  In the foreground, we have a plastic card holder with two stacks of cards.  We also get to see two hands fanned out, one behind the card holder and one laid out face up in front of it.

When I first saw the ornament, I immediately liked it.  While most of the ornaments in this series have picked elements that have dated the game boards/covers to the versions I had in the 80’s, this is definitely a more modern set of Uno cards.  We see this with the Wild Draw Four’s and the Draw Two cards that are in the hands.  Maybe that was one issue with the series – they went more of the nostalgic versions instead of the current versions.  Personally, that was one thing I had loved.

However, as I look at it more, I have some questions.  Like why do we have two face up discard piles instead of a draw pile?  And, while the back of the box is painted, why are the backs of both sets of cards white?  That’s one of the details that Hallmark usually gets right, so it is disappointing.

The series marker is on the back of one set of cards, and it’s painted there in black.  Honestly, when I first looked at it, I just assumed it would be raised on the bottom like it usually is on other ornaments.  I wish that is what they had done instead of painting it on.

As is usually the case with the ornaments in this series, you can set it out to be displayed without any problems.  While not level, it is completely stable, and it would look good this way.

The ornament also has a very small tip forward when you go to hang it.  This isn’t a surprise since most of the series has been this way, and it’s so small you will only see it if you are looking for it.

Over the last decade, we’ve gotten several games that weren’t part of the official series.  I’m hoping that this series will continue with unofficial entries since there are still some great games I’d like to have.

It’s too bad that the details weren’t quite right to make Uno a perfect send off for the fun series.  Fans will still be happy to have it in their collection.

Here are the rest of the Family Game Night ornaments.

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