Double the fun

When I got these ornament as gifts, I was hoping that they weren’t duplicates of some I bought several years ago, but that wasn’t the case. Not that I mind getting duplicate ornaments. The other S’mores ornament I bought was one of several from a baseball trip to Missouri, but the new one is the only one from a good colleague and friend. The other snowman ornament is like one that I found in a drugstore near where I live, but this one came from my sister and brother-in-law who showed up with his parents at one of my retirement celebrations.

Midwest CBK S’mores snowman

Acquired: December 14, 2011

Number: 1018

Size: 2.5 inches tall

Price: gift from colleague, Karen, my last week at work

Snowman on a sled with two penguins in red and blue hats

Acquired: December 14, 2011

Number: 1019

Size: 3.5 inches tall

Price: gift from my sister Xena and brother-in-law John at retirement celebration

Looks familiar

I knew this ornament looked familiar, but I also knew that I didn’t have a snow globe from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. Sure enough, here’s the same ornament from the Central Park Zoo, a gift from my good friend Anne, who has a few snow globes of her own. As I’ve said before, I don’t mind having duplicates, especially when they remind me of good friends and fun places. I wouldn’t mind having one of these from every zoo and aquarium in the world.

29 Tonight snow globe ornament, Shedd Aquarium Chicago

Acquired: September 20, 2011

Number: 0926

Size: 2.25 inches tall

Price: $9.99

Another one of these

I knew this one looked familiar, but I bought it anyway because it was only 50 cents. The googly eyes are a little different.

Foam cutout

Acquired: November 7, 2000, A.C. Moore, Stroudsburg, Pa.

Number: 0840 (same as 0397)

Size: 0840

Size: 4.5 inches tall

Price: 50¢

Recount

I have more penguin ornaments than I thought I did. I just realized I gave two of my newest penguins the same number, so I had to renumber about a half a dozen. These haven't been on the blog yet, so it wouldn't normally be a problem. The same thing has happened several times before I started the blog, but this time, I already posted my newest penguin about a month ago on January 24 with the wrong number. I've corrected the entry and added the size, which somehow never made it onto the blog.

Actually I have fewer penguins than I did before the recount. Over the weekend, I passed a couple of these triplicates on to another penguin fan, Ryan DeFelice, a friend of the family. (Don't worry, Ashley, I've got the same ones for you, and a bunch more.) These ornaments have been around for a long time and were posted on the blog last April here and here. I figured it was time to scale back a little bit and make room for next year's new ornaments. I'll keep these on record as part of My Penguin Tree. They'll just be in a new home.

Doubling up

The holiday season got off to an early start a couple of years ago when I had to take my laptop to the Apple Store for service. While I was at the mall I decided to see what was up at the department stores. It was mid November, but the Christmas department was all set up at Macy’s, where I found a number of ornaments, including the fat penguin with tinsel earmuffs, a candy cane in each wing and dangling orange feet. It’s kind of funny that exactly one year later, I bought the same ornament at another Macy’s.

Roly-poly penguin with tinsel earmuffs holding two candy canes with dangling orange feet

Acquired: November 19, 2009, Macy’s, Lehigh Valley Mall, Whitehall, Pa.

Number: 0723

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $7

Acquired: November 19, 2010, Macy’s Herald Square, New York

Number: 0852

Price: $4.86 discounted (originally $9)

Penguin Summer: All mixed up

With so many penguin ornaments piling up in the RV, it’s surprising that I didn’t get confused about which ones I had bought already. There were instances throughout the summer where I bought duplicates and also a few times when I bought penguins that belong together at different places. Here was a case where I bought the same ornaments just days apart. I could have checked the bag from Hershey Park to see if I had already bought the two penguins shown today, but for some reason I didn’t. I only photographed one of the two sets.

RAZ Holiday Imports roly-poly pair with fuzzy backs wearing green scarf and red scarf

Acquired: July 24, 2009, Incredible Christmas, Hershey Park, Pa.

Number: 0670 0671

Size: 3.5 and 4 inches tall

Price: $8.99 each

Duplicates of above

Acquired: July 28, 2009, Christmas Mouse, Nags Head, N.C.

Number: 0676 0677

Price: $8.50 each

Just like old times

Anne Kloster wasn’t able to tell me much about the ornaments except that some were considerably old. I hope some day that I can find out more about the penguins I found at her shop in Regensberg, Germany.  This glittery bulbous penguin is almost certainly from the mid 1980s, because I have two other glass ornaments that are exactly the same shape. 

The only difference is the paint job. I don’t know exactly when I got the first two, but it seems like I’ve always had them. At least one of them was a gift, I think.

Another ornament I hope I can identify is this Christopher Radko penguin. I’ll have to see if I can dig up some old Radko catalogs in order to find out what year it was made. It can’t be more than 25 years and it’s probably made more like 10 or 12 years ago. Just a guess.

Glittery bulbous glass ornament with red eyes and beak

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Number: 0655

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Price: about 19.80 €

Two bulbous glass ornaments

Acquired: mid 1980s, probably at least one a gift

Number: 0159 0160

Size: about 4.75 inches tall

Well-dressed glass Christopher Radko genteleman

Acquired: July 1, 2009, Regensburger-Tändlerei, Regensburg, Germany

Number: 0653

Size:

Price: 49 euros

An old friend

Maybe my favorite find at Käthe Wohlfahrt’s in Rothenburg ob der Tauber is the wood pullstring penguin on the right. When I saw it at the store I recognized an old friend that I had bought about 25 years before at the United Nations gift shop in New York. This might be the only time I intentionally bought a duplicate of an ornament that I already owned. Later that year, when I began to unpack the ornaments and set up the tree, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the new pullstring ornament was different in a number of ways. Despite the orange feet and some of the painted details, I still think of the new penguin as a duplicate of the old one.

Famo wood pullstring penguin, made in Austria

Acquired: 1980s, United Nations gift shop, New York

Number: 0039

Size: 5.25 inches tall

Wood pullstring penguin

Acquired: June 30, 2009, Käthe Wohlfart, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany

Number: 0626

Size: 5.25 inches tall

Price: 12.95 euros

Repeats

I felt like this pair of penguins looked familiar, but I wasn’t certain enough to leave A Christmas Past without buying them. It turned out that I already had the guy, a gift from my niece Becky, who found it in Chincoteague, Va., where she was working that summer. Just as well, because now I had an extra. Last year I hung one from the rearview mirror in my car. My Penguin Tree to go!

These penguins look a lot like another penguin couple for which I also happen to have two of the male. I bought Thaddeus and Millicent at Disneyland on my way home from Australia. A few weeks later, my friend and colleague Wallace Schroeder, gave me a couple of ornaments, including another Thaddeus.

Second police officer not shown)

Also at A Christmas Past, I bought a penguin firefighter and penguin police officer that wound up being duplicates. A year later, I bought an identical set, thinking that they would go with a mail carrier ornament. Oh, well, I was wrong. However, all of these are extremely nice ornaments, and I don’t mind at all having repeats.

TJ’s Christmas penguin couple decked out in red

Acquired: September 28, 2008, A Christmas Past, New Hope, Pa.

Number: 0517 0518

Size: 4 inches tall

Male penguin in red vest and hat

Acquired: August 15, 2008, gift from my niece Becky on her birthday

Number: 490

Size: 4 inches tall

Department 56 Christmas Krinkles Thaddeus and Millicent Penguin

Acquired: December 2, 2004, World of Disney Store, Downtown Disney, Anaheim, Calif.

Number: 0256 0257

Size: 4.25 to 4.75 inches tall

Thaddeus

Acquired: December 18, 2004, gift from Wallace Schroeder

Number: 0263

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Kurt S. Adler firefighter and police officer 1

Acquired: September 28, 2008, A Christmas Past, New Hope, Pa.

Number: 0519 0520

Size: 4 inches tall

Price:$7.95 each

Kurt S. Adler firefighter and police officer 2

Acquired: September 13, 2009, A Christmas to Remember, Lake George, N.Y.

Number: 0718 0719

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $9.99 each

(Note that in just short of a year I acquired 200 penguin ornaments.)

It’s always nice to have a spare

Here is an ornament that’s a duplicate of another one that I had to retire because of breakage. The original broke before it ever made it onto a tree, either during transportation from the store or in storage.

Nobel Gems by Kurt Adler grinning glittery parent and chick

Acquired: June 7, 2008, Christmas Factory, Marshall’s Creek, Pa.

Number: 472

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $9

Duplicate with broken wing tip

Acquired: July 21, 2007, Christmas Cottage, New York, N.Y.

Number: 365, retired 2009

Price: $12.95

Loving family

One thing nice about having two of these ornaments is that I can show you the front and the back in one photo. How about those embracing wings in the back? This is another example of having so many ornaments that I forget which ones I’ve already bought. Now, I can look at the blog when I’m not sure. In fact, I saw an ornament the other day that looks something like the big-footed penguin I posted Oct. 1, but I can see now that it’s different enough for me to buy it next time I’m back at that store.

Embracing parents with penguin chick

Acquired: May 15, 2008, Holiday Magic, Kansas City, Mo.

Number: 0466

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Price: $12.95

Duplicate of No. 466

Acquired: Dec. 26, 2008, Christmas Loft, Stowe, Vt.

Number: 0601

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Price: $8.99

Fifth wheel

There are five penguins here, but only four variations. That’s because I bought one of the duplicates by itself on one trip to the Christmas Factory and then bought the others about six months later at the same store. It’s always nice to have a spare.

Five Mission Gallery stuffed penguins with brown and red stocking caps and earmuffs

Acquired: January 9 (0450) and June 7, 2008, Christmas Factory, Marshall’s Creek, Pa.

Number: 0450 0482 0483 0484 0485

Size: 4 to 5 inches tall

Price: $2.99 each (No. 0450, $2.24, 25 percent off)

A pair o' peppermint penguins

Sometimes I have a feeling that I might be buying a duplicate ornament, sometimes not. And it doesn’t matter if the two are a week apart or, like these two penguins, a year apart. It’s just impossible for my aging brain to keep track of all 800 plus penguins. One reason I started the blog was to give me access to the collection wherever I might be. We’ll see how it goes as we get closer and closer to Christmas.

Two glass penguins with Santa hats and peppermint-striped scarves

Acquired: November 19, 2007, Macy’s Seminole Town Center, Sanford, Fla.

November 16, 2008, Fountains of Wayne, N.J.

Number: 0405 0569

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $6 (40 percent off); $7.99 (15 percent off)

Jingle bells, jingle bells

It’s Jingle Bell Week on My Penguin Tree. For whatever reason, jingle bells started popping up as a component on the penguin ornaments I was finding during a stretch of time in late 2007. They’re all close enough that I thought I could bunch them together and take care of them in one sweep. These four penguins each have a jingle bell head and a jingle bell body. The two top penguins, that hang as if they were flying, are identical. One of them I bought almost a year later than the other three, and I didn’t realize I was getting a duplicate.

Three jingle bell penguins

Acquired: October 14, 2007, Christmas Past, New Hope, Pa.

Number: 0390 0391 0392

Size: 3 inches tall, {flying) 3.5 inches long

Price: $2.95 each

Flying jingle bell penguin No. 2

Acquired: June 28, 2008, Jim Thorpe, Pa.

Number: 0488

Silver beauties

I bought these two pairs of penguins about a year apart. The first year they came with black velvet ribbon bow ties, but the next year they had red bows. The white and silver penguins have their wings outstretched and the black and silver ones have one wing raised.

Be Jolly Holiday Ornament silver, black and white penguins with black and red bow ties

Acquired: November 11, 2007, December 20, 2008, Target, Stroudsburg, Pa.

Number: 0395 0396 590 591

Size: 3.5 inches tall

Price: $2.99 each

Shine on

I bought identical penguins 100 ornaments and a little over a year apart, one in New York City and the other in the Poconos near my home. This shows how the penguin ornament collection really started to take off around the same time multiple penguin movies were making their rounds. The pace is more like 150 to 175 a year lately which means I’ll probably have more than 1,000 in a couple of years

I actually have a third ornament that matches these two glass emperor parent and chicks. It’s not as shiny because it’s made of plastic, but when the sun goes down and the lights go on, this penguin outshines almost all the others on the tree. 

It’s a light cover that fits over one bulb on a standard string of Christmas lights. I only bought one, but I don’t remember if it’s because I thought it would be too expensive to buy more or if it was the last one at the store in Houston where I found it. It would be nice to have a whole string full of these.

Two Merck Family Old World Christmas glass emperor penguin and chick ornaments with green glitter trim

Acquired: December 6, 2006, Tabwa, Greenwich Ave., New York City

Number: 0349

Size: 2.75 inches tall

Price: $8.50

Acquired: January 9, 2008, Christmas Factory, Marshall’s Creek, Pa.

Number: 0449

Size: 2.75 inches tall

Price: $7.99

Merck Family Old World Christmas plastic light cover

Acquired: September 27, 2008, Christmas Rocks, Houston 

Number: 0508

Size: 3 inches tall

Price: $7.99

Twice as nice

These two look good enough to eat. So good, in fact, that I bought two of them on separate occasions. I tried to convince myself that the second one was colored differently, but they are identical. The first one came from Williamsburg, Va., where I had made a detour on a driving trip from New Jersey to Florida. It was around Easter and the traffic on I-95 was bumper to bumper from Washington, D.C., to Daytona Beach, Fla., so I decided to stop for the night, and then take a longer slower route south the next day. My intention was to see historic Williamsburg, then head to Kitty Hawk, N.C., to visit the Century of Flight exhibit at the Wright Brothers National Monument. Instead I spent most of the day in three Christmas shops. By the time I got back to I-95, it was late and there were no motel rooms available, so I slept in my car at a rest area in South Carolina along with a lot of other drivers who were in the same predicament. It wasn’t so bad. That night I went to sleep in the driver’s seat with visions of Sugar Plum Penguins dancing in my head.

Sugary glass penguins with candy colored accents

Acquired: 1. April 3, 2004, Bassett’s Christmas Shop, Williamsburg, Va.

2. Sept. 28, 2008, Christmas Rocks, Houston, Texas

Number: 0234 0497

Size: about 2.5 inches tall

Price: $6.50, $5.75 

Bottlebrushes

This pair of penguins came to me months apart, but I have them together to show them from different angles. They seem to be shaped and carved from the business end of a bottlebrush, with wooden attachments for the feet, wings and beak. The one on the right has been attacked by something — insects, rodents, a cat or dog. You can see the damage on its wing, and its tail has also been gnawed. I don’t know when this happened, but I hope it’s an isolated incident. I’m not sure how the first came my way, but the second one was a very timely gift from Wende Schwingendorf who  came for a visit exactly when I needed a friend most.

Two bottlebrush penguins

Acquired: 2000, May 2001

Number: 0180, 0186

Size: about 3 inches tall

Good things come in threes

These three all came from different people and at least one of them probably arrived at the New York penguin tree party. I’m posting them now along with the other ornaments that I got that night. It’s easy to see why I wound up with so many of these: they are super cute.

Plush stuffed penguins with red ribbon bow ties

Acquired: 1980s

Number: 0064 0065 0066

Size: 4.25 inches tall

Birthday surprise

My friend Anne and the Central Park Zoo have done it again. I thought my friends and I were just getting together to play bridge again yesterday, but just before we broke up for the night, it turned into a surprise belated birthday party for me. There was a cake with my name written on a chocolate card on top and a single candle. After I blew it out, I asked if they were going to relight it 59 more times. There were also gifts — a beautiful paisley shirt; chocolate flower petals in rose, jasmine and orange blossom flavors; and this penguin ornament, which also happens to be a snow globe. The baby emperors remind me of Mumble, from the movie “Happy Feet.” This is my second birthday ornament from the zoo and another excellent addition from Anne Cronin. Giving this one a number means I've had to commit to the finger puppets from Mexico as 0770 and 0771.

29 Tonight penguin snow globe ornament, Central Park Zoo New York City

Acquired: April 17, 2010

Number: 0772

Size: 2.25 inches tall