Auld Lang Syne @ Department 56
I find it incredible that another year has come and gone. It seems only yesterday we debuted our 2024 lineup and now 2025 is launching and 2026 concept art is filling my desk. It’s hard not to get lost in the momentum of it all, but if there’s one thing the holidays are good for, it’s reflection. Like many of you, I was grateful for the handful of moments these past weeks where I could press pause on the hustle and bustle, sip some mulled wine (actually, any wine!), and ponder the results of the past year with gratitude.
Top of mind this year was you, the collector. I know it sounds cliché to say how much I’m grateful for your interest in what we develop, but Department 56 collectors are unique in so many ways. You’d think we tire of seeing photos of your displays or hearing stories of why you purchased certain pieces, but it’s quite the opposite. Your photos and feedback and memories of our Village are what inspire us as we craft the throughlines to our stories. Ultimately, we launch our pieces into the world and they take on stories of their own as they make their way into your lives. But trust when I tell you that our inspiration has, does, and will always come from you.
Case in point is my next area of gratitude – NCC leadership. I had the privilege of meeting with Brandon Taylor, Anna McPherson, and Jeffery Kirchner just over a year ago, and their input paired with the recommendations from many of you confirmed a lot of what you are seeing in 2025. Items I blogged about previously including our daisy-chained lampposts that allow multiple sets to be linked together and the introduction of Mary Poppins under Dickens’ Village were just two of the concepts in development that we felt were right to debut based upon the collective input. But gratitude seems such a small word to express the appreciation we have for NCC membership and leaders. The hours volunteered to maintain a community around a shared love of Department 56 is humbling, and an honor. We see you!
Gratitude extends to our team, as well. Credit oftentimes, rightfully, goes to our artists for the initial concepts, but there are literally hundreds of sculptors, engineers, and artisans responsible for bringing our Department 56 collections to life. And the task is not easy! I’ll share with you a few times this past year where the team was called upon to react quickly:
It’s no secret that we work 16 months ahead on any given collection. Our 2024 collection was begun in 2022, which was fraught with chaos. Rick Jackson was retiring, I was onboarding, and we were climbing out of the pandemic. It’s no surprise in all the chaos that we forgot that 2024 was the 40th anniversary of Dickens’ Village! It’s true. In our pipeline of production, it slipped our mind that we had a huge anniversary and failed to plan a piece or two in celebration. Granted, if we all had nickels every time we forgot a birthday or an anniversary, we’d be rich, but it sent us into a minor panic when our gaff was realized.
We pivoted quickly, crafting a few fantastic stories that fed concept art, but timing was so tight that we could not start from scratch on the development of a new lit house. Instead, we retrofitted what was originally intended as a design for a millinery into what became CULPEPPER’S RUBY JEWELERS. The building silhouette was fantastic, and with some minor tweaks we created a gorgeous 40th anniversary building that feels as if it were intended from the start! A hanging hat above the door was changed to a clock, and the coloring was changed from dusty blue to black pepper to fit with the story we’d crafted. You’d be surprised to learn that the greatest challenge on the design was sourcing actual crystals to use on the building and the TOO PRETTY TO PELLET figure but it was important to us to use real crystals to help maintain Department 56 quality.
The tardiness is also the reason the second commemorative lit piece, AN AVIARY, IN HONOR was sized smaller than a traditional lit building. The story made sense from the start – and was the first story we brainstormed when we discussed the 40th anniversary for Dickens’ Village – and the size was achievable within our timeline. And its accessory, SUCH A LOVELY LOVEBIRD was purposely painted in shades of mint to represent calm and growth in color psychology. There were no two things we desired more at the end of 2022 than calm because we had the 40th covered (whew!), and growth as a wish for Dickens’ Village for many years to come!
Thankfully, we had the 35th anniversary of our North Pole series in 2025 front of mind after our brain lapse on Dickens’ Village. Senior Artist, Paul Lundberg, had a jewelry store mind for the anniversary, and though it may feel like it mirrors what we did for Dickens’, we loved the story so much that we continued with the theme and created BLINGTASTIC JEWELERS. The theme of Santa is the foundation for the entire North Pole series, and I think you’ll agree how ingenious it is that Paul represented Santa by hiding him in plain sight with the architecture on this design. Fun fact, it took our artists and overseas artisans more than 3 months to perfect the gold and the crystals used on the building and the accessory, THE YULE JEWELER. We’re picky, but our pickiness is represented in the final product!
I could spend days giving you the ins and outs, highs and lows, nitty gritty details on the development of any given piece, but one more that I’ll highlight here is a small piece that was one of the most difficult to develop this year, and one that I’m so grateful to debut: CHERRY BLOSSOM IN BLOOM.
While debuting as a Cross Product, this tree began its life as part of our Lunar New Year pieces within Christmas in the City. When we brainstormed the concepts originally, I insisted I wanted the full collection that could fit on a demilune entryway table. From the start, my vision was to create a gorgeous vignette that could sit on its own, apart from Christmas in the City, as well as sit within it. In doing so, my hope was to please current collectors as well as attract new ones who may not be familiar with any Department 56 pieces at all.
Senior Artist, Tom Bates, took to laying out the entire collection from the initial debuts with LUNAR DRAGON TEA HOUSE, CHINESE DRAGON DANCE, and the CHINATOWN POST LAMPS S/2 through all 12 zodiac signs. But when we began to develop 17 CHERRY TREE LANE we believed the CHERRY BLOSSOM IN BLOOM would look gorgeous with it, too, so we moved it out of Christmas in the City into Cross Product. But before we could even do this, multiple factories declined to develop this tiny tree because of the complexity in production. Dying the EVA foam to the necessary “cherry blossom” variegated colorway and crafting the base and trunk in porcelain is much more difficult in production than you may realize. But we had one hero factory who not only rose to the challenge, but built an entirely new complex to help us produce this design as well as others like it in the future.
To you, the collector, this may just be a cute accessory piece. But when you consider the manpower, labor, trust, and investment from our artisan partners to not only bring this to fruition, but to ensure we have many more exciting pieces like it in the future, you can understand my gratitude and excitement over what’s to come!
Speaking of, I close with a sneak peak of what the Lunar New Year series will come to be. The grayed-out silhouettes are pieces yet to debut, and the colored ones are part of the 2024 and 2025 collections. I cannot wait for you to see all these gorgeous pieces together but can assure you that when you come to my home during the holidays, just before we toast over a mug of mulled wine, you’ll see this collection twinkling softly on the entryway table near my front door. I hope for the same if I visit you!
Until we gather again …
