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More New Arrivals

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.

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Unique Nativity Sets Around The Globe

As I’m sure you’re aware, the first real nativity sets didn’t begin until the first by St. Francis of Assisi in the thirteenNativity scene in Naplesth century, though the birth of Christ had been depicted in art since the origin of the Church. But since the thirteenth century, different cultures and different countries have taken the nativity and added their own spin to it.

Many credit Naples in Italy as the real beginning of the nativity set as an art form. In the eighteenth century there would actually be competitions between families to create the most elaborate and intricate scenes. These scenes were not necessarily biblically accurate, and often depicted more mundane activities as well, like Mary washing diapers.

In the United States, there is a regional variant on the traditional nativity set. The Pennsylvania Dutch created what was called a “putz” at the foot of their Christmas tree. These intricate miniature scenes expanded over the years to include not only the nativity scene, but also other important biblical stories, such as Noah’s Ark. From including other biblical storiesChristmas village, these time consuming miniature worlds began to encompass the secular world, as well, becoming an entire Christmas Village.

Perhaps even more elaborate in ways than the US tradition of the Christmas village is another derivative of the nativity set – originating in Krakow, Poland in the nineteenth century. Called the “Krakow szopka” – this art form is a kind of folk art, as the scene of the birth of Christ usually incorporates historic buildings in the area. Bright colors, gilding, and the prominence of the building in the background are typical. They even have krakow szopka competitions – they can be as tall as two meters (or six and a half feet)!

One of the most important nativity sets is one that did not begin until relatively recently. In 1982 Pope John Paul II started the annual tradition of placing a nativity scene on display at the foot of the Christmas tree in the piazza at Vatican City374px-szopka_krakowska_bronislaw_piecik_mhk_1998.

As well as static nativity sets, from the extravagant to the humble, there are also traditional live nativity scenes that are largely derived from mystery plays, which were prohibited by the Church in the fifteenth century. These living nativity scenes were brought to the United States by German immigrants. In some countries, these live tableaus involve a procession to a final destination, and other times are more involved re-enactments that encompass both secular and religious happenings.

Whatever your take on the nativity, there is no doubt that there are a lot of powerful and creative interpretations of the story of the birth of Jesus Christ.

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About Us- Our Values

During our many years in business, both working for large public corporations, privately owned companies and running our own businesses, we have seen the importance of corporate and individual values on how the company is perceived by its customers and on the success of the organization. Most of us have experienced  “customer service”  with no phone number, no one to answer if there is one, or the endless waits and dead end extensions of a modern customer communication system. Generally, what that ‘”communicates” to us is that the only thing important about us as a customer is when we pay our money and “please go away”.

A recent poll by Young and Rubicam, the advertising agency, discovered that during and  “post recession” consumers were placing more importance on a company’s “kindness and empathy”, “friendliness”,” high quality” and “socially responsible”. It was reported that, between 2005 and 2009, US consumers reported a fourfold increase in in their preference for companies that show kindness in their operations and in their encounter with customers.

Claire and I have always believed that we should treat our customers the way we would like to be treated if we were customers ourselves. Simply put, we believe in the “Golden Rule”-“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Have we faltered and had glitches in our customer response? Of course! We are human after all.

Nevertheless, we are constantly trying to offer the best Life Size Nativities, Toy Soldiers and Nutcrackers and Outdoor Christmas Decor. We regularly improve on and add new products and we stand by the products we offer. We visibly display our toll free telephone number on our website and we try to answer customer calls, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. More on this in the next post.

In the meantime, I will share with you the beautiful new Life Size Nativity 15 piece with Stable Item 43151. This set  has a new Ox and Donkey, a new King Balthazar and a chicken!43151st00

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Options for Outdoor Nativity Scenes

Ever since Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Claire used live animals and local villagers to stage the Christmas Nativity, Christians in North America and around the world have used all variety of materials and figures to represent the birth of Jesus Christ. These include  banana leaves, wood and straw in Mexico,  carved wood figures in the Philippines, plastic resin and fiberglass statues in the US and Canada and  Renaissance marble works of art in Europe.

Our offerings for Outdoor Nativity Scenes are neither wood and straw nor marble, but rather fiberglass and plastic resin. These are manufactured in Asia using processes similar to building a small boat, which, hopefully will make them durable and long lasting. They are finished with sunlight resistant paint. The figures are fairly heavy, weighing as much as 90 pounds for a large life size King. Nevertheless, we strongly recommend some sort of tethering for each piece to reduce the possibility of damage from tipping over and vandalism as well as theft.

We also offer Nativity Sets with a two dimensional “cut out” look in painted wood. Each of these pieces comes with a base and attachments which can be used to create an attractive tableau in limited space.95200nst

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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.

32700stFirst 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.

More on our new items in the next blog.

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Outdoor Versus Indoor Christmas Decor

60680stFrom 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.

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More About New Arrivals

37005st2A 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.

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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.

43151st1Our 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

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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.

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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.

  1. 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
  2. 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.
  3. For smaller figures, such as Nativity animals or the baby Jesus, tether them in two places to wood pegs using clear fishing line.
  4. 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.
  5. 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