It's Christmastime!! While it's a religious holiday and we don't observe, I enjoy most of the trappings of the season. Ornaments are a big thing, so many are so beautiful. Enter Hallmark Mary's Angels, when my sister bought me my first one in 1997. I fell in love, and this is pretty much the only cutesy AND religious objects I'll tolerate. They're adorable.
I'd been getting each year's issue on and off, but this month I made a concerted effort to fill in the entire collection, and decided to take the plunge into Ebay. Besides a crash course on Ebay, I've been able to get very good prices on my ornaments, 3 of them bargains. I've lost out only to the asshole ebay resellers who buy up inventory at the low prices and turn around immediately to try to hock them at 4 times that price. I'm not playing that game, I'll just keep looking until I get them at a reasonable price. Of course, if I get a bargain that's great too. $40 is fine, but I've drawn the line at getting the $100 ones. That's just ridiculous for a christmas ornament. I don't feel *that* strongly about them.
The Hallmark website is also the lamest I've visited so far, on par with other clueless government sites where it's clear the people involved know zero about being online. Also, every other time I've tried to visit, there's an error page.
I'm only missing two now, the first issues, and now everyone's piled on Ebay, so I'll wait until the end of the month or next month to shop again. But of course I'll keep an eye out, just in case.
Now I'm looking for a metal ornament display stand to showcase them, since they get lost in a tree. We don't have those anymore anyway, don't want the critters hurt.
