Aquarium emporiums

On my visit to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago last September, I went into three different shops, one of them twice, or maybe there were only two shops and I hit one of them three times. Each time I found penguin items that I missed on the earlier visits. I ended up with a penguin cooking spoon rest, a penguin t-shirt, penguin shorts and three penguin Christmas tree ornaments. Check out the other two ornaments in the last two older posts in case you missed them. This one wasn’t unique to the aquarium or marked with the Shedd name in any way. I was surprised to find a Merck penguin that I didn’t already own, because I see them a lot and try to keep up with the new ones as they come out. They are escellent ornaments, usually small, but decorated nicely with an old-fashioned look. My labels list indicates I only have three Mercks, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot more than that.

Merck Family Old World Christmas glass Playful Penguin with red Santa hat and glittery green scarf

Acquired: September 20, 2011, Shedd Aquarium, Chicago

Number: 0927

Size:2.5 inches tall

Price: $9.99

Enormous candy cane

This penguin nestled in the crook of a large candy cane came from The Flower Petaler in the historic village of St. Charles, Mo., near St. Louis. I was going to an afternoon baseball game at the Cardinals’ new stadium, so I showed up at the store early in the morning. The store wasn’t open yet, but let me in to poke around. You had to enter the Christmas shop through a florist shop that smelled just like all the flower shops where my mother worked when I was growing up. It was the most orderly Christmas shop I’ve ever been in. All the walls were divided into equal-sized pigeon holes, and each pigeon hole had one ornament hanging in it. They didn’t have a lot of penguins, but I was happy to find this very nice one.

Merck Family’s Old World Christmas glass penguin with a huge, glittery candy cane

Acquired: May 17, 2008, The Flower Petaler, St. Charles, Mo.

Number: 0470

Size: 3.5 inches tall

Price: $7.99

The same, only different

These ornaments are the same, but with different colored scarves, so I’m showing the back of one for the big ribbon bow and the front of the other so you can his enormous gold beak and those big blue eyes.

I bought the first one on a baseball trip to Kansas City and packed it away until Christmas. When I saw the green one at Stowe Mercantile, I knew it looked like the other one, but I wasn’t sure about the color. I knew it was the same, yet somehow it looked different. I decided to buy it, even if it was an exact duplicate, because I liked it.

When I got home I poked around the Christmas tree to find the first one. I was happy and surprised that they had different colored scarves.

Merck Family’s Old World Christmas small glass ornament with red glittery scarf, big orange beak and blue eyes

Acquired: Dec. 27, 2008, Stowe Mercantile, Stowe, Vt.

Number: 609

Price: $8

Size: 2 inches tall

Merck Family’s Old World Christmas small glass ornament with green glittery scarf, big orange beak and blue eyes

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

Number: 463

Price: $6.99

Size: 2 inches tall

Moving on

Laughing, loaded with gifts and decked out in a glittery green scarf and red stocking hat, this penguin looks like he’s in a hurry to get to the holiday festivities. I have a number of other Merck Family ornaments that will appear in future posts. They have a distinctive tag on the hanging loop with the initials O.W.C. I found this one at the Christmas Loft, which had become one of the regular stops on my ski trips to Stowe, Vt. I'm back again today for a few days, but the Christmas Loft is closed now, although it's still open in a couple of other locations in Vermont and their web site can be found online. The black spot on the front view of the penguin is actually a hole, probably a small blowout. I don’t remember seeing the flaw until this year, so I don’t know how or when it happened.

Merck Family’s Old World Christmas “Perky Penguin” glass ornament

Acquired: Feb. 2, 2005, The Christmas Loft, Stowe, Vt.

Number: 232

Size: About 3.5 inches tall

Price: $6.99