Cirque du penguin

I could probably fill a small tree with circus clown penguin ornaments. What? Penguins aren’t funny enough without putting them in big shoes and funny hats? Here are a bunch of comical penguins I bought on a trip to the mall. Some came from Macy’s and others came from Penney’s. That was two Christmases ago. Wait ‘til you see what theses two stores did to me last year. (That’s a few months away.)

Clown-like penguin with green coat and purple hat sitting on a big blue ice cube

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

Number: 0725

Size: 5.75 inches tall

Price: $8.50

Flying penguin with butterfly wings and purple pants

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

Number: 0726

Size: 3.5 inches long

Price: $8.50

Rocketeer wearing red helmet with white stars

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

Number: 0727

Size: 3.5 inches long

Price: $8.50

Falling or jumping penguin in a yellow raincoat with a splash

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

Number: 0728

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $8.50

Red Santa hat and coat with papoose

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

Number: 0729

Size: 3.5 inches tall

Price: $8.50

Mini red Santa hat and coat with papoose

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

Number: 0730

Size: 2 inches tall

Price: $8.50

Red jingle bell body, green boots and coat with rainbow-striped top hat and legs, wearing big red bow and holding peppermint candy

Acquired: November 19, 2009, JC Penney, Lehigh Valley Mall, Whitehall, Pa.

Number: 0731

Size: 5.5 inches tall

Price: $4.99 (originally $9.99)

Same as No. 731, but no jingle bell body and holding candy cane

Acquired: November 19, 2009, JC Penney, Lehigh Valley Mall, Whitehall, Pa.

Number: 0732

Size: 5.25 inches tall

Price: $3.99 (originally $7.99)

Penguin in red and green striped ring with wire hands and blue and white bead legs

Acquired: November 19, 2009, JC Penney, Lehigh Valley Mall, Whitehall, Pa.

Number: 0734

Size: 6 inches tall

Price: $4.99 (originally $9.99)

Look, Mom! No feet!

Here are two very different ornaments that I bought the same day on my early Christmas shopping trip to Allentown, Pa. One thing they have in common is that they have no feet. It’s not like the feet came off like at least one other penguin in my collection. They never had any. The Christopher Radko ornament is supposed to look like a baby’s roly-poly toy, usually in the form of a clown, that was popular in the mid 20^th century. The penguin in the second picture resembles ornament No. 680 posted a couple of weeks ago, but they aren’t made of the same material, and if you look closely you can see several differences in the details.

Christopher Radko “Penny Roll” roly-poly Santa

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

Number: 0722

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $50

Penguin with no legs holding green bag

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

Number: 0724

Size: 3.5 inches tall

Price:$7

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)

Catching up

If you’re trying to write a daily blog, don’t ever get behind, even if you don’t think people are paying attention. It’s really hard to catch up. I had a strange cold after Christmas and somehow lost my grip on the blog and a few of life’s other details. Making matters worse, I was in the middle of cataloging ornaments that I collected in the summer of 2009. It involved a lot of ornaments and a complicated series of events that was difficult to sort out. So, instead of just skipping a few days, I thought it would be best to back date some posts to keep the continuity going. That means I’ve been working on the posts, but not posting them until I could get to this point and explain the lapse. But it looks like I’m back in business, back in good health and back on schedule. In keeping with the catching up theme, I’ve got a few ornaments that I skipped over earlier because I needed to reshoot them after unpacking the decorations this Christmas. The penguin in a walnut shell was a gift. I bought the box of 12 wooden ornaments when I went to the store to buy index cards for cataloguing all my penguins.

Walnut shell

Acquired: early 1980s, probably a gift

Number: 0049

Size: 2.25 inches long

Set of 12 wooden miniature winter penguins

Acquired: November 25, 2006, Target, Middletown, N.J.

Number: 0302 through 0313

Size: 2 to 3.5 inches tall

Price: $9.99 set

Penguin Summer: Lake George

About halfway between where I live and Montreal is Lake George, N.Y., which makes the resort town a good place to stop for a break or lunch . . . or a penguin shopping spree. I’ve stopped at A Christmas to Remember a number of times, but I never bought as many ornaments as I did at the end of summer 2009. The bag full of penguins brought my total for the summer, starting with the trip to Germany, to 96 ornaments.

Two gold glittery penguins on glittery icicles

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

Number: 0711 0712

Size: 4.75 inches tall

Price: $9.99 each

Sledder, snowboarder and skier with red glittery hats and sneakers

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

Number: 0713 0714 0715

Size: 3 inches tall

$9.99 each

Little “rough-hewn wood: penguin with wreath around neck

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

Number: 0720

Size: 2.25 inches tall

$4.99

Penguin balanced high over a snowboarding polar bear’s head

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

Number: 0721

Size: 6 inches tall

Price: $12.99

Penguin Summer: Montreal

I was in Montreal for a journalists’ convention in September 2009, still summer for a few more days. The conference hotel was just a few blocks from Noël Eternel where I found a few more penguin ornaments, including the beautiful Ne’Qwa ornament painted on the inside. I also bought a duplicate of an ornament that I had bought in Hershey, Pa., on the summer RV journey.

Roly-poly glass penguin with red Santa hat and red snowflakes on its belly

Acquired: September 11, 2009, Noël Eternel, Montreal, PQ

Number: 0706

Size: 5 inches tall

Price: 8.99 $CAN

RAZ Holiday Imports molded glass parent and child with fuzzy backs

Acquired: September 11, 2009, Noël Eternel, Montreal, PQ

Number: 0707

Size: 4.5 inches tall

Price: 12.99 $CAN

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

Number: 0669

Price: $9.95

Penguin Summer: New Mexico

I found a number of penguin ornaments on my visit to New Mexico where a large group of friends had gathered for the Santa Fe Opera. One was my 700^th penguin ornament. You can read about on my post of Feb. 3, 2010.

Roly-poly porcelain Santa holding a tree and star on a hook with body punched full of star-shaped holes and big circular cutout with penguin

Acquired: August 16, 2011, The Shop, a Christmas Store, Santa Fe, N.M.

Number: 0699

Size: 3.25 inches tall

Price: $6.50

Puffy little knitted penguin with wild, fuzzy white hair, brown beak and feet

Acquired: August 16, 2009, Susan’s Christmas Shop, Santa Fe, N.M.

Number: 0701

Size: 4 inches tall

Price: $9

Big emperor penguin with a green Merry Christmas sign

Acquired: August 18, 2011, The Christmas Shop, Old Town Albuquerque, N.M.

Number: 0702

Size: 5 inches tall

Price: $6.95

Ceramic “rough-hewn wood” penguin with orange feet and black toenails

Acquired: August 18, 2011, The Christmas Shop, Old Town Albuquerque, N.M.

Number: 703

Size: 2.5 inches tall

Price: $3.95