Category: Useful Information about Outdoor Christmas

In my last blog I discussed the so called “Plastic Reindeer Rule” created by the US Supreme Court. In summary, this ruling seems to require that any display of religious significance, such as a Christmas Creche or Nativity Scene, should be accompanied by a secular Christmas figure such as a Santa , Toy Soldier, Nutcracker or Reindeer.

Even this interpretation of the ruling is open to challenge by parties like the ACLU. In other cases a Giant Creche placed in New York City’s Central Park at the corner of 5th Avenue and 57th St, seemed to cause little comment. If a municipality or local community wants to play it safe, we may be able to help. Beginning this week, August 8 and through September 30, 2011, we are offering a 10% discount on the price of any Life Size Snowman, Santa, Toy Soldier,  Nutcracker or Caroler Set ordered along with a Life Size or Giant Nativity Scene, such as a 43150 or 41102. Please refer to the discount code “Reindeer 2011″

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This is an exciting and busy time of year for us. Our warehouse staff is working hard unloading multiple steel shipping containers containing boxes of our products manufactured in our factories in China and the Philippines. At the same time Claire, our buyer( and President) is busy photographing new items and sets which have just arrived so we can add or update the pictures on our website.

Some of these new items are additions to our Nativity Sets and Outdoor Nativity Scenes as well as a new Toy Soldier. We believe that it is important to continually improve and  add to our sets and individual items. We work with our factories and their designers and model makers to create new and improved Wise Men, Angels and Shepherds as well as adding dogs, goats and various barnyard animals and fowl to our Nativity Scenes.

On our website, you will now see the various social  media icons, including Facebook and Twitter. We hope you will “like” our site and share your photos and stories with us. We will be creating “Tweetable” stories and offers in the next few months as we develop these tools. More on this in our next post.

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 on our new items next week.

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.

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.

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

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.

My last blog exulted that the bulk of our import containers from Asia had finally arrived after many unusual and unexpected delays. Well,obviously, many customers were waiting to hear that and orders started coming in immediately. We were able to begin our on-line advertising campaign last week and our first customer newsletter went out today.

The gratifying result has been many more calls and orders. The Giant Life Size Nativity sets, 15 piece and 12 piece, are very popular and we have already re-ordered from our factory. Our large lighted frame figures and scenes are doing very well and the new Nutcrackers and Toy Soldiers that we introduced this year are attracting great interest and sales. Both categories are trending ahead of past years.

Customer service has spoken to several people who create large outdoor displays at Christmas and who want to add several of our new figures. One lady said she had invested a half million dollars in her display so far. No recession for these folks! We value our relationship with collectors and that is one reason we design and build new items each year. The other reason is that in retail, which we are on the internet, “you are only as good as your newest product” and that is what keeps us going. We have a  great designer( our president) and skilled and efficient factories, plus great staff providing superior customer service. All in all, a good combination.