Old World Christmas expands ornaments with Elvis, KISS and books

Nostalgia is becoming one of holiday retail’s most reliable conversion tools, and Old World Christmas just staked out a wide lane in it. The Spokane, Washington, ornament maker unveiled a 2026 licensing slate on May 12 that stretches from Elvis Presley and KISS to General Mills and Penguin Young Readers, a mix built to catch both collectors and impulse gifters with familiar names that already live in family memory.

Neal Applefeld, Old World Christmas’s president and chief executive, called the assortment “a celebration of legends.” That is the right pitch for a category where the object matters as much as the reference: the company is making hand-blown glass ornaments that are hand-painted and hand-glittered, then tying them to cultural properties with built-in recognition. For shoppers, that means these pieces are not just decorations, but compact keepsakes with a clear emotional hook.

The strongest commercial idea here is multigenerational appeal. Elvis Presley, Def Leppard, Bee Gees and KISS reach different eras of music fans, but they all benefit from the same logic: the ornament is small enough for an easy holiday add-on, yet specific enough to feel like a thoughtful nod to a favorite artist. General Mills is also getting a significant expansion of its ornament line, extending the company’s play into pantry nostalgia, where a cereal-box memory can be as potent as a band logo.

The literary side of the lineup gives the strategy a different kind of staying power. Old World Christmas added new Penguin Young Readers properties, including The Little Engine That Could, and said that partnership builds on its tradition of turning beloved literary brands into keepsake ornaments. That matters because book-based ornaments tend to travel well across generations: parents recognize the title, children connect with the character, and the ornament becomes part of the annual unpacking ritual rather than a one-season novelty.

The bigger retail signal is that holiday gifting is drifting toward objects that can be explained in one sentence and remembered for years. Old World Christmas, founded in 1979 by Tim and Beth Merck after they reintroduced figurative mouth-blown glass ornament designs to the United States, has a long runway in that space. Its new partnerships show how legacy music acts and childhood books are becoming high-conversion ornament buys, with enough familiarity to feel instant and enough craftsmanship to feel worth saving.