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June 3, 2011February 15, 2019

Exciting New Items for Christmas Decorating

Our major product focus has always been on large outdoor Christmas decoration figures. These include outdoor Nativity scenes and toy soldiers and nutcrackers. We realized, from customer feedback and our own research, that we had to broaden the category of Christmas outdoor decor. So we worked, with our designers and the factory technicians, to create new concepts and figures.

32700st First was our new four piece Caroler Set which attractively updated the conventional Dickens era dress and look for Christmas Carolers. We augmented this set with a fabric and resin Indoor Caroler set, which will arrive shortly. Other festive fabric and resin figures, new this year include the Jester, Santa with a Horn and Vintage Santa.

We have added more of the beautiful plush animals both for the Nativity and for other Christmas decoration. These include the life size goat and baby lamb as well as brown and white hens, reindeer, dogs, deer and polar bear. A set of two penguins completes the array.

Outdoor Versus Indoor Christmas Decor

60680st From the beginning of our business in 1999, we have focused on outdoor Christmas decor.We found that there wasn’t a good selection of large, high quality and durable outdoor figures such as Santa, Snowmen, Toy Soldiers, Nutcrackers, Reindeer,and particularly Nativities and Creche scenes.We have greatly expanded the available selection of these products and our customers have expressed their appreciation.

Recently, it became apparent that there was a need and demand for indoor Christmas figures that went beyond the traditional “trim a tree” selection of lights, baubles, tinsel, tree skirts, tree stands and Christmas stockings. so we decided to create the category of indoor Christmas decor. We began last year by offering a limited selection of beautiful, large resin and fabric Nativity figures made by one of our factories. These sold well and we have expanded the Nativities to include plush animals and new Nativity figures such as Shepherds and Angels.

In addition we have designed a wonderful new Caroling Family, with a 52in Father and Mother and a 44in daughter and 42in son. Complementing this family are two resin and fabric Santa and , just for fun, two Jesters.

More About New Arrivals

37005st2 A great benefit in dealing directly with overseas factories is that we can design and build new products which we can then offer exclusively. This means that when we experience significant customer interest in a large nutcracker, for example, we can come up with new larger size or different look and expand our business while satisfying customer desires.

We have created a number of new pieces for our Life Size Nativity Set.

We have also created two new six and one half foot (78in) Nutcracker Kings which arrive in early June.

May 5, 2011February 15, 2019

Our First Christmas Arrivals

This is the time of year when we have visited all our factories, approved all our new designs and placed most of our orders. We have been waiting impatiently for our first shipping containers to arrive so we can start shipping our many advance orders for Nativity Sets both indoor and outdoor.Many churches, municipalities and businesses order early to ensure they get their set, because of budget timing or because they were too late deciding last year and we were sold out.

We are very excited about showing our best selling Life Size Nativity with a new King and new larger Ox and Donkey and Lambs.

43151st1 Our Life Size African American Nativity has several new figures including a black Gloria Angel and Black Shepherd and is now 12 piece.

We have designed and made a new five foot Toy Soldier and we have a Nutcracker King coming in a month or so.

All in all, a great time of year for us and our customers

April 11, 2011

China’s Christmas Industry Predicting Worldwide Inflation?

Many of the labels on our Christmas decorations say “Made in China” but few of us realize that more than 60% of the world’s Christmas goods come from China. The very low profit Chinese Christmas industry has suffered recent difficulties which could predict problems for Chinese and worldwide manufacturing.

Some of these problems are common to low wage developing countries and include the rising cost of city living as workers move from rural villages with family support and low living costs. Manufacturers in the Chinese Christmas industry have been forced to increase wages as much as 150% and still have faced labor shortages. Factor in the increasing average age of Chinese workers and their reluctance to work long hours for low wages and live in factory dormitories thousand of mile from their home villages and you can predict more labor shortages for this and other low wage industries. The government has encouraged many factories to relocate inland where cheap labor is more available, but these new locations do not provide the raw material supply, skilled trades and lower transport costs now enjoyed by the ” coastal pods” of Christmas product manufacturers.

Rising material costs are also pressuring the industry. Commodity prices, led by oil and copper, are increasing worldwide. Rising oil prices impact on the transport cost of everything. In addition oil is the feedstock for many plastic resins used in the manufacture of many Christmas articles. Raw materials are estimated to make up 40% of the cost of Christmas products.

Since profit margins are so low in the very competitive Chinese Christmas business, these problems could become the “canary in the coal mine” for many industries worldwide as China, with its huge demand is driving up commodity prices and exporting inflation and low wage jobs.

The Christmas business will likely continue to be centered in China as no other low age country has the labor supply, concentration of efficient factories and industrial infrastructure to support mass production. Nevertheless, countries such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and even the the Philippines and Indonesia will experience a rapid growth of low wage jobs.

If you disagree, please comment.

April 6, 2011

Five Ideas to Prevent Stolen Christmas Decorations

My last blogpost told the story of Betty Wetmore of Columbia MO and her Santa, Sleigh and Reindeer display stolen before last Christmas. Although the police recovered her display, it was broken and she and her husband experienced a lot of stress. Every year, during the Christmas season, we are contacted by customers who have had a lamb or the baby Jesus stolen from their Nativity set, or a Nutcracker or Toy Soldier spirited away and if recovered, in poor condition. We recognize that a determined thief will eventually overcome the best security but we have some suggestions for securing your outdoor Christmas decorations that will make successful disappearance less likely.

Drive a wood post or piece of steel rebar into the ground behind each standing piece and tether the piece to the post using flexible wire, clear fishing line, or nylon ties
If setting up the display on a wood surface, such as a stable for a Nativity set, screw or glue the figures to the wood surface.
For smaller figures, such as Nativity animals or the baby Jesus, tether them in two places to wood pegs using clear fishing line.
Some of our larger figures have attachment brackets built in to the structure. These can be used to attach the figure to the wall behind for items such as Toy Soldiers or Nutcrackers displayed on each side of a door or to a floor or ground for such displays as Nativities.
Bare ground attachments can be disguised using mulch or other ground cover.

Please note that these attachment methods can be used to prevent taller pieces falling onto hard ground or walkways and being damaged. Causes can be high winds or vandalism.

We are always looking for innovative ideas for tethering your Christmas displays. Please send us your solutions and we will feature them in an upcoming blog

April 1, 2011February 15, 2019

Crime Doesn’t Pay?

We recently were involved in an interesting and funny story involving impetuous youth, citizen aided law enforcement, sweet (and tough) victims and perpetrators who “fessed up”.

We had a call from a nice young man who said he is treasurer for a college fraternity in the Midwest. He wanted to purchase one of our lighted outdoor decorations and have it shipped to a lady in the same town as the college. He referred to the need to replace a lighted decoration that had been damaged by some of the members of his fraternity. He arranged payment and asked for shipping confirmation, which we always provide.

The next day, I had a call from the lady with the damaged Christmas decoration, who gave me the rest of the story. It seems that her decoration was one of several that were stolen in this town before last Christmas. She was upset and prayed for the return of her piece. In the meantime a neighbor, walking their dog late at night, noted the license number of a suspicious car, which was traced back to the college fraternity.

Two boys at the fraternity admitted to stealing a number for Christmas decorations and the fraternity offered to replace any damaged pieces. The boys were charged with a class C felony and will be disciplined by the fraternity ethics council. The nice lady says she feels sorry for them.

The lady’s husband was unable to repair the returned decoration so the fraternity is purchasing a more expensive piece from us to replace it. Finally, the nice lady said that her church needs a new Nativity Set. Since she is on the committee and now knows about us, our website and our selection of Lighted Nativity Sets, she will likely buy one from us.

Our thanks to the fraternity!

March 15, 2011February 15, 2019

A Visit for New Products

We just returned from an exciting and tiring trip to our overseas factories. Aside from many long flights, our main memories are of the skilled and creative factory managers and their dedicated and hard working supervisors and employees. We actually participated in the creation of the final specifications of a resin and fabric Caroler group, item 60680 (picture and link to follow), as well as an all resin Caroler set for outdoor use , Item 32700 (as above)

We were presented with first approval pieces of a new King, Ox and Donkey for the 54″ Life Size Nativity and we had the fun of adding final decorative touches to these items We had the fun of approving the new sleigh and finding a Santa for the new Santa and sleigh set and the wonderful new Nutcracker King items 37005 and 37006 which will please a lot of people.

Our approach to direct marketing to consumers is to offer a certain number of new products each year and to continue to listen to our customers regarding improvements to existing sets and items. I think we are doing this and sales seem to indicate that it is appreciated.

We will continue to update you on these developments. We expect to start receiving replenishment stock and new item in shipments arriving May 15 and continuing through the summer.

February 7, 2011February 15, 2019

New Items and Ideas for 2011

We are very excited about our planned new items and sets. We have been able to add two new pieces to our beautiful and popular Christmas Nativity and Christmas Nativity with Stable. These new pieces will be a Christmas Shepherd with Lamb and a Little Lamb. Because of a manufacturers cost increase and the two new figures, the price of the sets will increase.

To add to and improve the beauty and functionality of our very popular Life Size Nativity 54″, we have replaced the original Ox and Donkey with larger and more detailed figures. The Life Size Black Nativity which was well received last year, has been improved by the addition of a Shepherd Boy and the new larger Ox and Donkey. As with many of our imported items, factory cost increases and much higher cost for container shipping across the Pacific have resulted in price increase for these items and others on our website.

The success of our 2010 trial of indoor resin and fabric Nativity figures has prompted us to add a 42in shepherd to the Nativity Pure Charm and Animal set. In addition we will be adding a number of new Nativity, Angel and Christmas figures from the designer Mark Roberts.

A Recap of 2010

Looking back on 2010, we see a difficult year. Most of our problems were caused by shipping. Not only our import shipping by steel container but also our truck shipping to our customers.

Import shipping became increasingly expensive as shipping companies claimed shortages of steel containers and not enough ships. It’s funny how these became available if we agreed to pay much higher prices. Add to this the very high cost for random government inspections and we were hit with a 40% increase in these costs.

The cost of LTL truck shipping to our customers increased dramatically in 2010. We lost our favorable treatment for residential delivery and the use of a the lift gate and the trucking companies arbitrarily added costs over and above their “usual” 5.9% annual price increase. Of course the “temporary fuel surcharge” continues to climb. I’ll bet that even if diesel fuel fell to $1 per gallon, this would still not disappear.

Many importers of Chinese made Christmas goods reported late and incomplete deliveries. Fortunately, we have most of our figures made in the Philippines, so we had few problems other than shipping delays.

It was the kind of year you would expect as the world economy slowly exits the “Great Recession”, but the tactics used by the shippers and suppliers makes one cynical and I don’t want to become that way when we design and sell such beautiful and inspirational figures.