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Showing posts with the label Ornament

Lemax: Coventry Cove Nativity Scene Lighted Table Accent

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This review is yet another in our long and prestigious series on crap we found clearanced for damn near nothing - this display piece was left lingering in the clearance aisle of K-Mart into January. While there may not have been room in the inn for this decoration, there was space in our closet. Lemax does a lot of miniature pieces, some of which make decent stand-ins for table-top gaming and toy displays. I considered this a pretty nice find: these usually sell pretty well, in my experience. If I'm remembering right, this one was going for 75% off, which felt like a deal, even with one of the lambs broken off ( Little lamb, who broke thee? / Dost thou know who broke thee? ). Here's the piece out of its packaging with the broken lamb put back together again. We'll pretend I glued it down instead of just balancing it on its broken feet. First reactions: this isn't a bad piece overall. The grassy display and manger look good, as does the fence. The back of the

Rite Aid Home for the Holidays LED Lamp Post Decoration

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While keeping Christmas in our hearts all year round may be too ambitious a goal for even us, we find that doing the bulk of our holiday shopping in the weeks after Christmas can extend that yuletide feeling well into January. Also, it saves us a ton of cash, largely thanks to the fact that stores unload any remaining junk at steep discounts once the 25th has come and gone. The decorative piece I'm looking at today is no exception. This was originally priced at $69.99, though I'm not sure I ever saw it selling for less than half that. As soon as last year's seasonal merchandise was on the shelves, it was joined by a 50% sign that never seemed to disappear. For all intents and purposes, retail on this thing was thirty-five bucks, which is probably good, because there's no way in noel this is worth seventy. Personally, I wasn't about to pay thirty-five, either: I held out until early January, when it got marked down to 75% off, which means I paid about $17

Home for the Holidays: Singing Cardinals on Branch

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Over the years, I've found the large drug store chains to be abundant sources of bizarre holiday decor, none more so than Rite Aid. Their seasonal section seems to be full of a wide array of Christmas oddities that linger well into January, when everything becomes more affordable. That's the story behind this, of course. I grabbed it last year when it hit 70% or 75% off. As you can probably tell from the image, these are low-end animatronic birds fixed to a stand decorated with fake tree pieces. When activated, they erupt in a chirping version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" at deafening volumes while LED's  light up behind them. This is the part of the review I typically go into a rant about the crappy quality, or stupid concept. But there's a problem... I kind of love this thing. I mean, sure, it's too loud and I could do without the glitter coating the base (I hate glitter). And, yeah, the plastic pine pieces aren't doing it an

Shimmer Noel Decorative Filler

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If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that Michaels sells some weird shit. Seriously. I love the store (I even worked there once, long ago), but they sell things that simply defy explanation. This is a good example of that phenomenon. We found these sold with other seasonal decorations. This is a pack of round, furry balls - nine for $12.99, if you pay full price. If there's a second thing I've leaned over the years, it's that you should never pay full price for seasonal merchandise at Michaels. We got these at 70% off in some sort of post-black-cyber-buy-our-crap-Friday-doorbuster-sale. I'm not entirely clear on why  there was a sale going on, but it brought the price below $4 for the set, which is something like $0.43 per unit. But none of that's important, because there's a far, far, FAR more immediate question elicited by these: WHY? Actually, "Why?" is itself merely a starting point. Why were th

Hallmark 2016 Keepsake Ornaments

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We like to pretend what we do here at Mainlining Christmas matters, that we're creating something that will last. But deep down, we know better. In the distant, post-apocalyptic Christmases of the future, the cockroaches hyper-evolved by radiation from World Wars 7 through 14 won't be reading this blog. They will, however, decorate the festive spinal columns using Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments. Because - and this part's important - these things will be around for-freaking-ever. No one knows why exactly. Perhaps their CEO made a blood pact with a fiend of hell. Or maybe it's branding - whatever the reason, Hallmark ornaments are here to stay. And this weekend, they unveiled another year's additions to the collection. That's right, you slackers at K-Mart who wait until September to kick off the holiday shopping season, Hallmark understands the true meaning of Christmas in July. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking these aren't wor

Holiday Home LED Touch Globe With Icon (Santa Claus)

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He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly. - A Visit from St.Nicholas, Clement Clarke Moore Before you ask, the answer is yes - that is a plasma ball built into Santa's stomach. We found this in early November at Fred Meyer on sale for 50% of its suggested retail price. If I even have to explain why we bought it, you're reading the wrong blog. The tag on this calls it an "LED Touch Globe With Icon". The "Icon" part is to keep things ambiguous, since they also had ones with a snowman motif. Between the two, I can't imagine anyone picking up the snowman. Other than a tag connected to a "try me" button and a bagged set of warnings and instructions, there was no packaging. The tag was branded, "Holiday Home," which is about as generic as you can get. The back says it was distributed by "Inter-American Products," which sounds nothing like a soulless multi-national con

Snoopy's Countdown to Christmas Ornament

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I found this lingering on a Walgreens shelf marked 75% off and was too curious to leave it there. The back of the package is impressively direct: this is unapologetically marketed towards parents utterly sick of answering the question, "How long until Christmas?" I'm also kind of impressed with how direct they are on what this thing can (and can't) do. The back reads more like an FAQ than selling points, informing you before you buy that it's incapable of handling dates before October 1st (which is unfortunate - how cool would it be if it reset to 364 days at midnight on the 26th?). This is ostensibly intended as an ornament, though I think it would look awful on a tree. You really want this pushed up against a wall to hide the fact it's only half the figure. You can get a sense for how this is set up above. The batteries and controls are hidden beneath a panel that requires a screwdriver to remove. This probably counts as a feature if you h