A Surprise Early Retirement

          … ok, too bad this is not about me retiring early (which would have been nice )

On Thursday, September 10, our beloved “Ms. Lit Town,” Melinda Seegers, announced on Facebook Live that a few Snow Village Halloween & Harvest pieces are being retired early.

Normally, we don’t receive retirement news until the end of the year, when the company publishes its list of retiring Village and Snowbabies products. I suppose that with Halloween approaching fast, this early announcement gives collectors a chance to find these pieces in retail stores before they disappear for good — and perhaps an opportunity to add them to this year’s Halloween or fall display!

Some of these pieces are expected to retire at the end of this year, as they were created especially to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Village collection in 2026.  Click here to see the list of retired pieces.  Below are images of some of the pieces that have been announced for retirement.

On Sunday, September 27, our club will be having a Halloween-themed meeting, and we hope to see everyone there!

For those who missed our May meeting or our special July meeting, you can visit our Past Meetings page to catch up on what took place at those meetings.

What’s Happening?

 

After a couple of meeting cancellations due to bad weather, our club was finally able to meet for the first time in 6 months at the end of March.  That was also our Annual General Meeting and you can read all about what happened here.

Our May meeting is just a few days away.  There will be a White Elephant sale and a presentation from Vintage Villages, a Toronto based store that connects sellers and buyers of Department 56 and Lemax products.  So, that is going to be a fun meeting and can’t wait!

The club executives are also hard at work in planning a special summer meeting.  The fact that more than half of the scheduled meetings were cancelled in the previous fiscal year was unprecedented.  So stay tuned for more details regarding “Christmas in July”.

Just so you know, I have updated the list of web sites on the left panel of the main page and included The Village Chronicler.  This site has tons of information on Department 56 and its products.  The owner of the site is also a well known collector among the Department 56 collectible circle.  Have a look around the site and I hope you enjoy what you see.

With the amount of rain lately in the Greater Toronto area, I sure hope that we will have lots of May flowers blooming soon

Are We There Yet?

 

Although we are still officially in Spring, I am certain everyone cannot wait for Summer to arrive.   In Canada here, the “May 24th” weekend is usually when everyone gets antsy to have his/her cottage opened or to have plants/flowers planted in the garden.   And yet, just like clockworks, the weather does not co-operate (at least in the Ontario area).  Oh well, c’est la vie, right?

But for our club, we certainly have a lot to look forward to.   Our next meeting is going to be our Annual General Meeting.   And you say, what? why?  didn’t you already have one in your March meeting?   Wish we did but due to poor weather condition (i.e. ice storm), we had to cancel that meeting and postpone our AGM till the May meeting.   For this AGM, we will have elections on the following positions: President, Vice President and Treasurer.  We will also be renewing our club membership.  Can’t wait to see everyone again after an unexpected hiatus.

Speaking of “can’t wait”,  Department 56 has also unveiled a few more new pieces available for sale in 2025.  Time to save up some money to purchase these goodies.   Here are some of the new items:

And in case you did not notice, Department 56 has also introduced a couple of new village series:

Scenterville – a lighted Village house with a USB-powered wax warmer and its rooftop is a removable silicone tray that holds scented wax; that’s technology in play!

Canyon Village – a US Southwestern style of buildings that are familiar with snowbirds

Let’s wait and see how well received these 2 villages are for collectors.

Here’s to Something New!

A new year has just begun.   Department 56 collectors certainly cannot wait to see what new village pieces are in store for them.  Here are some of the new 2025 introductions:

Needless to say, introducing new pieces into the new year means that we have to say goodbye to some of the current items (I call it the “Circle of Life in Collectibles”).   Click on these links to see the various 2024 retirement lists: Village, Snow Village Halloween and Snowbabies.

As for our club, we have just celebrated our 30^th anniversary this past November.  It was a smaller event than our previous anniversary celebration, but it was joyful and meaningful for those in attendance nonetheless.  Click here to see for yourself what fun activities we had.  To stay in touch with our club’s activities, refer to the newsletters prepared by our fantastic newsletter teams here.