The Company That Made Plastic Glow: The Complete History of Union Products

From Leominster’s plastics boom to Don Featherstone, the Pink Flamingo and generations of glowing Santas, snowmen and holiday icons, Union Products helped turn molded plastic into American nostalgia.

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

If you collect vintage blow molds long enough, certain names stop sounding like manufacturers and start sounding like family names.

Empire.

General Foam.

Beco.

Poloron.

And then there is Union Products.

For many collectors, finding UNION PRODUCTS — LEOMINSTER, MASS. molded into the bottom of a decoration is enough to make them turn it over for a second look.

There’s a reason.

Union wasn’t merely another company that happened to manufacture plastic Christmas decorations.

It existed in one of the most important places in the history of American plastics. It employed one of the medium’s most famous designers. It produced decorations that ranged from Christmas and Halloween to lawn-and-garden absurdity. And one Union creation escaped the category entirely to become one of the most recognizable objects in American popular culture.

The Pink Flamingo.

But reducing Union Products to the flamingo is a little like reducing Disney to Mickey Mouse.

Technically understandable.

Wildly incomplete.

For readers of The Glow That Won’t Go Out—and collectors trying to understand why Union pieces remain so beloved—it’s worth going back to Leominster and telling the larger story.

Because before plastic Christmas decorations became nostalgic…

plastic itself was the future.

Before Union Products, There Was “Plastic City”

Leominster Massachusetts plastics city, pink flamingo & comb

To understand Union, you first have to understand Leominster, Massachusetts.

Union didn’t randomly appear there.

Leominster had already spent generations becoming a manufacturing center. The area was initially famous for comb production, first using natural materials such as horn. The arrival of celluloid transformed the industry, and Leominster increasingly became associated with plastics manufacturing.

By the time Don Featherstone joined Union in 1957, Leominster reportedly had roughly 60 plastics factories employing about 5,500 people—around 80 percent of the city’s workforce.

Think about that.

Today we look at an old plastic Santa and see nostalgia.

Leominster once looked at plastic and saw industry.

Jobs.

Factories.

Innovation.

Injection molding.

New materials.

New ways of mass-producing consumer goods.

This was an ecosystem, and Union Products grew out of it.

Historical accounts generally date the company’s beginning to the mid-1940s; collector references commonly cite 1946, while the Journal of Antiques and Collectibles dates the beginning of operations to 1947. That small discrepancy is worth acknowledging rather than pretending the surviving record is perfectly uniform.

Initially, Union produced hard-plastic injection-molded goods and flat plastic lawn decorations before increasingly embracing three-dimensional molded forms.

And that transition would change everything.

Enter Don Featherstone

If Union Products has a central character, it is Donald Featherstone. I write about him in more detail here.

Featherstone was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1936 and studied art at the Worcester Art Museum School. Soon after finishing school, he took a job at Union.

Imagine that career transition.

You study sculpture and art.

You graduate.

And your professional canvas becomes…

plastic lawn ornaments.

Featherstone later joked about the disconnect himself. But Union needed exactly what an art-school graduate could provide.

The company wanted to move beyond relatively flat lawn decorations and into three-dimensional plastic forms.

That required somebody who could actually sculpt them.

Featherstone’s early assignments included animals. For a duck, he went so far as to obtain a living duck and study it.

Union was essentially combining an old artistic process—observing, drawing and sculpting—with a very modern industrial one.

An artist created the form.

Tooling translated it into a mold.

Plastic manufacturing made it repeatable.

Then thousands of identical sculptures could leave Leominster and land on American lawns.

Fine-art training had met mass-market plastic.

That combination would become Union’s superpower.

And Then Came the Flamingo

In 1957, Featherstone created the object that would forever be attached to his name.

The plastic Pink Flamingo.

2 Original Featherstone Pink Flamingoes in box

Because finding an actual flamingo wandering around Massachusetts proved somewhat difficult, Featherstone worked from photographs, including imagery published by National Geographic. He sculpted the birds in clay before they were translated into production tooling.

The familiar pair featured two poses:

One upright.

One feeding.

They were unmistakably pink.

They were ridiculous.

They were wonderful.

And America bought them.

Sears carried the flamingos, and contemporary reporting describes early pairs selling for only a few dollars. Millions eventually spread across American lawns.

Something strange had happened.

Union had manufactured a lawn decoration.

America turned it into a cultural symbol.

The Pink Flamingo Became Bigger Than Union

The flamingo eventually came to represent practically everything people loved—or hated—about postwar suburban America.

Artificiality.

Optimism.

Mass production.

Tropical fantasy.

Suburbia.

Kitsch.

Camp.

Bad taste.

Good bad taste.

And eventually nostalgia for all of the above.

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History describes Featherstone’s molded-plastic flamingo as evolving from ordinary lawn ornament into one of the best-known icons of American pop-culture kitsch.

That transformation matters to blow mold collectors.

Because the exact same thing eventually happened to the Christmas decorations.

A plastic snowman wasn’t originally manufactured as a collectible.

It was merchandise.

A Santa was something you bought at a store and put beside the front door.

A candle illuminated the porch.

A Nativity went in the yard.

Nobody was putting them into climate-controlled storage because they thought someone would be debating production variations on Facebook fifty years later.

They were inexpensive pieces of popular culture.

Time turned them into artifacts.

Don Featherstone Was Much More Than the Flamingo Guy

This is where Union’s history gets unfairly compressed.

Featherstone didn’t design one bird and spend the next four decades admiring it.

He became extraordinarily prolific.

Published estimates differ depending on what is counted: contemporary sources credit him with more than 600 or 650 designs, while collector literature has placed his output even higher.

By the late 1990s, Union itself reportedly offered more than 200 varieties of plastic yard art, including numerous Santas and other seasonal figures.

And that variety is central to understanding Union.

The company wasn’t simply making Christmas decorations.

Its catalogs encompassed Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Independence Day, along with planters, animals and other lawn-and-garden pieces.

Union was manufacturing a plastic version of the American calendar.

Christmas, Union Style

For today’s blow mold collector, this is where the company becomes especially interesting.

Union’s holiday output included the kinds of forms that now define vintage blow mold collecting:

Santas. Snowmen. Candles. Carolers. Nativity figures. Angels. Soldiers. Elves. Animals. Seasonal characters and yard decorations.

Variety of Union Products blow molds, Santas, elf, angel teddy bear, candle, toy soldier — *Images courtesy of blow-molded.com*

What made many of them memorable wasn’t merely that they illuminated.

It was their personality.

Union’s strongest pieces have faces.

Expressions.

Character.

The sculptural sensibility matters.

Look closely at a good vintage mold and you begin to see that the decoration isn’t simply a hollow plastic shell.

Someone sculpted the folds.

The beard.

The smile.

The buttons.

The eyes.

The posture.

The texture.

That’s why certain molds remain recognizable even when the paint has suffered.

The sculpture is doing much of the work.

And that’s one reason Union remains so respected.

The Christmas Decoration Was Also Industrial Design

It’s easy to romanticize these pieces so much that we forget how they were made.

They were industrial products.

The goal was to manufacture a three-dimensional object efficiently enough that an ordinary family could afford to buy one.

That creates fascinating constraints.

The figure has to look good.

But it also has to release from tooling.

It needs structural integrity.

It needs paint decoration that can be repeated.

If illuminated, light needs to travel through the plastic effectively.

It needs to survive packaging and shipping.

It has to stand properly.

And most importantly:

somebody has to want it badly enough to take it home.

This is where blow molds become a particularly interesting intersection of sculpture, manufacturing and retail design.

Union excelled at that intersection.

Why Union Pieces “Glow” So Well

Collectors often talk about the appearance of vintage blow molds when illuminated.

There isn’t one universal Union formula—materials, thicknesses, paints and manufacturing practices varied across products and eras—but older blow molds can have a visual character that modern collectors immediately recognize.

The light isn’t simply sitting on the surface.

It’s inside the sculpture.

The plastic becomes the diffuser.

Painted details sit over illuminated polyethylene.

A Santa that looks slightly odd in daylight can suddenly become magnificent after dark.

That transformation is the entire magic trick.

It’s also why photographs rarely capture exactly what collectors love about these things.

You have to see a yard full of them glowing.

Halloween Before Halloween Became an Industry

Union’s importance isn’t limited to Christmas. Remember Hope‘s “holy grail” piece – the Featherstone “Happy Halloween” jack o’lantern.

Vintage Halloween blow molds have become a collecting category unto themselves, and Union participated in a much broader seasonal catalog that included Halloween decorations. Collector histories document everything from ordinary seasonal forms to decidedly strange creatures and characters.

And vintage Halloween has something Christmas doesn’t.

Scarcity of historical merchandise.

For decades, Christmas was the giant decorating holiday.

Halloween merchandise existed, of course, but the enormous seasonal retail machine we know today developed later.

That makes surviving vintage Halloween plastics especially appealing.

Pumpkins.

Witches.

Ghosts.

Black cats.

Haunted imagery.

Oddball characters.

Variety of Union Products Halloween blow molds including ghost, black cat, bear, grim reaper, Bela Lugosi, Happy Halloween jack o'lantern sign & haunted house — *Images courtesy of blow-molded.com*

For collectors, the stranger the better.

Union understood strange.

Remember:

this is the company whose greatest contribution to civilization may be putting millions of pink flamingos on people’s lawns.

Not Every “Featherstone” Is a Featherstone

Here’s an important collector distinction.

You’ll sometimes hear people casually refer to Union blow molds as “Featherstones.”

That’s understandable.

But it can be misleading.

Don Featherstone was Union’s extraordinarily important designer and eventually its president and co-owner.

Union Products was the manufacturer.

Not every Union piece should automatically be attributed to Featherstone personally without documentation tying that design to him.

The Journal of Antiques and Collectibles has specifically cautioned collectors about using “Featherstone” as though it were simply another name for all Union molds.

That’s exactly the kind of distinction collectors should preserve.

Manufacturer attribution and designer attribution are not the same thing.

The Signature on the Flamingo’s Rear End

The flamingo offers one of the most entertaining examples of product authentication imaginable.

By the 1980s, knockoffs were everywhere.

So Union needed a way of distinguishing the genuine article.

Around the flamingo’s 30th anniversary, Featherstone’s signature was incorporated into the tooling.

Where?

On the bird.

More specifically…

its rear underside.

Millions of people had bought the flamingo.

Now collectors could flip one over and look for Don’s signature.

It was essentially the plastic lawn-ornament equivalent of an artist signing a canvas.

The signature also became a useful dating clue. Sources generally place signed original Union birds beginning around 1987. The signature was removed after Featherstone’s retirement, prompting enough backlash that the decision became a minor cause célèbre among flamingo enthusiasts.

Imagine designing something so beloved that people protest when your autograph disappears from its plastic butt.

That’s a legacy.

Featherstone Went From Employee to Owner

There’s another part of the Union story I particularly like.

The 21-year-old art-school graduate hired to sculpt plastic animals didn’t remain simply a designer.

Featherstone spent decades with the company.

He rose through its ranks.

And in 1996, Featherstone and two other longtime employees purchased Union Products.

The artist had become an owner.

Eventually he served as president.

Think about the arc:

Art school.

Plastic duck.

Pink flamingo.

Hundreds of designs.

Corporate leadership.

Ownership.

Few people have careers quite like that.

Union Tried to Reinvent Its Greatest Hit

The company didn’t simply freeze the flamingo in 1957.

Union experimented with variations.

There were different colors and special runs.

A Snomingo arrived in the 1990s.

Union Products white flamingo blow mold, the Snomingo

Then came the Realmingo, a larger and more realistic interpretation unveiled in 1998.

Featherstone understood something that today’s blow mold manufacturers are rediscovering:

Nostalgia and novelty can coexist.

Collectors want the familiar.

But they also want something they haven’t seen before.

It’s the same tension running through today’s blow mold revival.

Bring back an old favorite?

People want it.

Create something completely new?

People want that too.

Just don’t mess it up.

Collectors will let you know.

Then the Economics Changed

Union’s story eventually ran into the same forces that reshaped huge portions of American manufacturing.

Competition intensified.

Manufacturing costs changed.

Retail changed.

Imported goods became increasingly significant.

Plastic resin became more expensive.

Energy costs mattered.

And producing bulky, relatively inexpensive plastic lawn decorations in Massachusetts became increasingly difficult economically.

By 2006, Union Products was in trouble.

The company announced that its Leominster operation would close.

Contemporary reports cited rising plastic-resin and electricity costs as well as financial difficulties.

And suddenly the media weren’t merely reporting the closure of a plastics factory.

They were reporting the possible extinction of the Pink Flamingo.

Union ceased production in Leominster in 2006.

An era had ended.

Except Union Didn’t Completely Die

This is where the story gets better.

The tooling survived.

And tooling is everything.

When a manufacturer closes, collectors often assume the product is gone forever.

But if the original molds survive, resurrection remains possible.

After Union’s closure, HMC International acquired rights and tooling and planned renewed flamingo production in New York.

Production later became associated with Cado in nearby Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Eventually Cado acquired Union Products and its intellectual property/assets, allowing production under the Union name to continue. Cado says the acquisition preserved production of Featherstone’s famous flamingo in the region where it originated.

That makes Union unusual.

The original company closed.

But its identity—and at least part of its manufacturing heritage—survived.

The Flamingos Came Home

There’s something wonderfully appropriate about Cado’s involvement.

Union was born in the Massachusetts plastics ecosystem.

And after a detour through changing ownership, production became rooted again in central Massachusetts.

By 2016, Cado told WBUR it was manufacturing roughly 50,000 to 60,000 pink flamingos annually.

Think about that for a moment.

An object designed by a 21-year-old artist in 1957…

made using a technology that once represented America’s manufacturing future…

mocked for decades as tacky suburban junk…

was still being manufactured nearly sixty years later.

That’s not failure.

That’s immortality in polyethylene.

Why Union Products Remains So Admired

Ask collectors why Union matters and you’ll get different answers.

Some love Featherstone.

Some love the flamingo.

Some collect Santas.

Others want Halloween.

Some are hunting obscure variants.

Some simply remember these pieces from childhood.

But I think Union’s enduring appeal comes down to five things.

First, the sculpting. Many Union pieces have unmistakable personality. They’re decorations rather than merely plastic forms.

Second, variety. Union wasn’t confined to one holiday or one visual language. The company’s catalog became a sprawling universe of lawn and seasonal art.

Third, history. Union is connected to Leominster’s extraordinary plastics-manufacturing heritage.

Fourth, Featherstone. Having a documented artist behind so many mass-market plastic objects gives collectors a human connection that’s often missing from industrial products.

And fifth:

Union made fun things.

That’s easy to underestimate.

Not everything has to be serious. The company created blow molds in the likenesses of The Three Stooges! How can you not love that?

Sometimes you need a glowing Santa.

Sometimes you need a snowman.

Sometimes you need a plastic bird so aggressively pink that your neighbors question your judgment.

Union understood this.

The Difference Between Collectible and Important

There are rare blow molds.

There are expensive blow molds.

There are blow molds collectors desperately want.

But historical importance is a different question.

Union Products matters because its story extends beyond the hobby.

The Smithsonian has preserved Featherstone’s flamingo as an object of American cultural history.

That’s significant.

An inexpensive molded-plastic lawn ornament crossed an invisible line.

It stopped being merely merchandise.

It became Americana.

And that’s ultimately what happened to the best vintage holiday blow molds too.

They became pieces of memory.

Look at the Bottom

This is one reason I tell collectors not to judge an old blow mold only from the front.

Turn it around.

Look underneath.

Search for markings.

Manufacturer names.

Numbers.

Old electrical openings.

Paint patterns.

Seams.

Construction details.

Because once you know the manufacturers, a random plastic Santa at an estate sale becomes something else.

It becomes a clue.

Union Products. Leominster, Massachusetts.

Now you’re holding a piece connected to one of America’s great plastics-manufacturing cities.

You’re holding something from the same company that gave the world the Pink Flamingo.

You’re holding a survivor from an industry that once employed thousands of people in central Massachusetts.

The decoration hasn’t changed.

Your understanding of it has.

That’s what collecting history does.

The Glow Really Didn’t Go Out

When Union’s Leominster factory closed in 2006, it would have been easy to write the ending there.

Factory closes.

Jobs disappear.

Molds get scattered.

Company becomes a paragraph in manufacturing history.

But that’s not quite what happened.

Collectors kept the pieces.

People kept hunting them.

Featherstone’s work became increasingly celebrated.

The flamingo survived.

Tooling survived.

Production survived.

And the Union name survived.

More importantly, the objects became something their creators probably never anticipated.

Heirlooms.

That plastic snowman Grandma put outside?

Someone wants it.

The Santa your parents bought decades ago?

Someone remembers it.

That weird Halloween figure your neighbor displayed every October?

Someone is searching for one right now.

Union Products manufactured decorations.

Time turned them into memories.

And collectors turned those memories into history.

That’s why Union remains one of the essential names in blow molds.

Not simply because of what the company made.

But because so much of it is still glowing.

Discover More in The Glow That Won’t Go Out

Union Products is only one branch of the much larger story told in The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds.

The book explores the history and evolution of blow molding, major manufacturers, identification clues, collecting, restoration and the people keeping this unusual corner of American holiday history alive.

Because the next time you find an old plastic Santa at an estate sale, turn him over.

There may be a story molded into the bottom.

Empire Plastics: The Company That Helped Make Christmas Glow

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews, author of The Glow That Won’t Go Out

There are certain objects that don’t simply remind you of childhood.

They switch childhood back on.

For me, vintage blow molds do that.

Put an old plastic Santa on a dark lawn, plug in that slightly questionable cord, wait for the bulb inside to warm up, and suddenly you’re not looking at a piece of molded plastic anymore.

You’re looking at Christmas.

And if you grew up in America during the second half of the twentieth century, there’s a pretty good chance that some of those glowing figures came from one company:

Empire.

Collectors know the name.

You’ll see it stamped into the backs and bases of Santas, snowmen, candles, Nativity figures and Halloween decorations that still turn up at estate sales, flea markets and in garages across America.

But Empire deserves to be remembered for something bigger than the name stamped into the plastic. And yes, I even designed a t-shirt honoring its roots.

For decades, the company helped define what an American holiday looked like.

The Beginning of an Empire

The corporate history can get confusing because the names Empire, Empire Plastics, Empire Industries, Empire of Carolina, Carolina Enterprises and Judith Novelty Sales all appear in different chapters of the story.

But the holiday-decorating lineage collectors associate with Empire reaches back to the 1950s in Tarboro, North Carolina.

Early seasonal pieces were marketed through Judith Novelty Sales, associated with Carolina Enterprises and what would become the Empire operation.

And Empire wasn’t simply a Christmas-decoration company.

This was American plastics manufacturing during its postwar boom.

The company’s output included toys, ride-ons, garden products and novelty items alongside the hollow plastic figures collectors obsess over today.

Plastic was becoming the wonder material of American consumer culture.

And blow molding offered manufacturers a particularly magical trick.

A relatively large object could be produced as a hollow shell, making it durable enough for the yard, light enough to carry and — most importantly for us — translucent enough to illuminate from within.

Empire understood the possibilities.

When Plastic Became Christmas

Vintage Empire blow mold catalog pages featuring snowman, Santa, Disney characters, etc. — Courtesy-Blow-Molded.com

Look at the classic Empire catalog and you begin to understand the company’s influence.

Santas.

Snowmen.

Toy soldiers.

Candles.

Elves.

Choir figures.

Nativity pieces.

These weren’t subtle decorations.

That was the point.

They were big. Bright. Cheerful. Colorful. And when somebody put a light inside one on a December night, it became something completely different.

A plastic figure suddenly had a soul.

That’s the strange magic of the blow mold.

During daylight, you can see every scuff, faded patch of paint and imperfection.

At night?

Turn the bulb on and all is forgiven.

Empire became extraordinarily good at that transformation.

The Empire Nativity

Vintage Empire Plastics catalog page featuring nativity scene. — Courtesy – Blow-Molded

If I had to choose one product family that demonstrates the company’s lasting impact, the Empire Nativity would be near the top.

Mary.

Joseph.

Baby Jesus.

The shepherd.

Sheep.

Wise Men.

Camel.

Donkey.

Ox.

Over time, the collection grew into the kind of large illuminated Nativity display that became a fixture of American Christmas decorating.

These weren’t decorations you placed on a mantel.

They could occupy a yard.

Families assembled them beneath homemade stables. Churches displayed them outside. People added pieces over time until a small Holy Family became an entire illuminated scene.

And that’s where blow molds become something more interesting than collectibles.

They became traditions.

A child might see the same Mary and Joseph pulled out of the garage every December for 15 years.

Eventually that child grew up.

Then one day, decades later, he spots that exact Joseph at an estate sale.

Suddenly it’s not plastic anymore.

It’s memory.

Empire Didn’t Just Create — It Preserved

There’s another important chapter in Empire’s history.

The American blow-mold industry was never static.

Companies disappeared. Tooling changed hands. Aluminum molds survived the companies that originally owned them.

Empire became part of that chain of preservation.

Designs associated with manufacturers such as Poloron and its successors eventually found their way into Empire’s catalog. Pieces originally conceived in an earlier era could therefore survive into another generation.

One wonderful example is the classic Drummer Boy.

Vintage Empire Plastics drummer boy blow mold.

Its lineage stretches through multiple manufacturers. Empire produced a version during the 1990s, and after Empire’s seasonal business changed hands, the design continued under General Foam.

That’s one of the fascinating things about collecting blow molds.

Sometimes you’re not simply tracing a decoration.

You’re tracing a mold.

The company name can change while the character survives.

And Then There Were the Characters

Empire wasn’t afraid of pop culture, either.

During the 1970s, the company produced Christmas-themed Disney characters, including versions of Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.

Vintage Empire Plastics Mickey Mouse santa & Goofy blow molds.

Think about how wonderfully strange that is.

Traditional Christmas iconography lived alongside cartoon characters, toy soldiers and giant candles — all made from glowing molded plastic.

But that eclectic quality was part of the appeal.

The American front yard was becoming its own holiday stage.

And Empire supplied the cast.

Halloween Gets the Empire Treatment

Christmas may dominate the popular memory of blow molds, but Halloween collectors know Empire had plenty to say once October arrived.

Jack-o’-lanterns.

Ghosts.

Scarecrows.

Black cats.

Witches.

Seasonal characters that looked completely different once illuminated against a dark porch.

Vintage Empire Plastics Jack o'lantern blow molds.

By the 1990s, Empire was still creating memorable Halloween pieces. The company’s Jack the Scarecrow, for example, appeared during that decade and has since developed the kind of nostalgic following that turns an ordinary yard decoration into a sought-after collectible.

That is another reason Empire matters.

Its history wasn’t frozen in 1965.

The company kept participating in American seasonal decorating for decades.

The Company Behind the Blow Molds Was Much Bigger

Collectors sometimes understandably reduce Empire to the glowing figures.

But the company was a significant toy manufacturer as well.

Empire’s world eventually included ride-on toys and recognizable consumer brands. It acquired rights to the famous Big Wheel, and later its toy operations encompassed brands including Buddy L. What kid in the 1980’s didn’t have one of these??

That larger business helps explain the scale behind the holiday decorations.

Empire wasn’t a tiny workshop producing a few hundred Santas for specialty stores.

This was industrial American manufacturing.

The Tarboro operation became enormous, with a manufacturing complex eventually encompassing roughly 1.2 million square feet.

Millions of plastic products passed through that manufacturing ecosystem.

And among them were the Santas and snowmen now sitting in our garages.

The End of Empire

Like many great American manufacturing stories, Empire’s ending is complicated.

Corporate restructuring, acquisitions, financial pressure and increasing competition transformed the business during the 1990s. The whole story should really be an HBO Max series, shouldn’t it?

By 2000, the Tarboro manufacturing era was coming to an end.

In May of that year, Empire entered into an agreement with General Foam Plastics involving its Tarboro facility and substantial portions of its seasonal manufacturing operation.

General Foam acquired the holiday product assets and continued producing many designs associated with the Empire legacy.

Later that year, Empire of Carolina filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

By 2001, substantially all of the remaining toy operations had also been sold.

The Empire that had helped fill American yards with plastic Christmas characters was effectively gone.

But here’s the funny thing about blow molds.

Companies can disappear.

Their products refuse to.

Why Empire Is Still Everywhere

Drive around older American neighborhoods in December and you’ll occasionally see one.

Maybe it’s a Santa whose red paint has faded almost pink.

Maybe it’s a snowman with scratches across his stomach.

Maybe Mary has spent 30 winters standing next to Joseph.

The owner might not even know they’re Empire pieces.

They simply know that these decorations belonged to Mom and Dad.

Or Grandma.

Or they’ve been in the family “forever.”

That might be Empire’s greatest achievement.

The company manufactured mass-produced plastic objects that somehow became family heirlooms.

Think about the contradiction in that.

Plastic was supposed to be cheap.

Disposable.

Modern.

Replaceable.

Instead, people are restoring these things.

They’re searching flea markets for them.

They’re repairing cracked plastic.

They’re replacing missing light kits.

They’re researching paint variations and manufacturing marks.

They’re driving hundreds of miles to buy a Santa somebody else was about to throw away.

And they’re passing them down.

The Imperfections Are Part of It

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why vintage blow molds have such an emotional pull.

I don’t think perfection has anything to do with it.

Actually, I think it’s the opposite.

An old Empire piece often shows its life.

The paint is thin around the nose.

There’s a scratch down one side.

The plastic has yellowed slightly.

Someone drilled a hole where they probably shouldn’t have.

The light kit isn’t original.

Maybe there’s a name written on the bottom in permanent marker from a garage sale 30 years ago.

Every flaw is evidence that the thing survived.

And when you illuminate it again?

It still works.

It still glows.

More Than a Manufacturer

That’s why Empire belongs in the conversation whenever we talk about the history of American blow molds.

Companies like Empire, Union Products, General Foam, Beco and Poloron weren’t simply manufacturing seasonal decorations.

They created a visual language.

The glowing Santa beside the driveway.

The plastic candle near the front steps.

The snowman standing in the yard.

The Nativity glowing beneath a plywood stable.

These images became part of the American holiday landscape.

Empire helped put them there.

The Glow Didn’t Go Out

Today, collectors know what previous generations often didn’t.

Those old decorations matter.

Not because every Empire blow mold is rare.

Many aren’t.

Empire produced and distributed enormous numbers of them, which is precisely why so many people remember them.

Their importance isn’t necessarily scarcity.

It’s reach.

Empire put glowing plastic Christmas memories into neighborhoods all across America.

And more than two decades after the original company disappeared, collectors are still plugging those memories back in.

That’s a pretty remarkable legacy for something that started as a hollow piece of plastic.

Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to these things.

Factories close.

Companies disappear.

Catalogs get thrown away.

People move.

Families change.

But somewhere tonight, somebody will find an old Empire Santa in an attic, wipe the dust from his face, put a bulb inside him and watch him glow again.

And for a moment, everything that disappeared with him comes back.

That’s the glow that won’t go out.

Curtiss Wayne Andrews is the author of The Glow That Won’t Go Out, a collector’s guide exploring the history, manufacturers, personalities and enduring appeal of vintage holiday blow molds.

The Hunt Never Ends: Inside The Blow Mold Boys of Massapequa Park

What started with two friends, $300 and some replacement light cords has grown into a small business built around vintage Christmas, hard-to-find blow molds—and the eternal problem of where to store all this plastic.

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

There comes a point in almost every serious blow mold collector’s life when a troubling realization sets in:

You need parts.

Maybe you found the perfect vintage Santa at a yard sale.

The paint is good.

The plastic isn’t cracked.

The price was right.

You bring him home, turn him around and discover that the electrical components appear to have last been inspected during the Carter administration.

Or maybe there’s no cord at all.

Or the backing plate is missing.

Or the clips are gone.

Suddenly your great $20 find has become a restoration project.

That’s part of the world Thomas and his longtime friend stepped into when they started The Blow Mold Boys in Massapequa Park, New York.

But Thomas isn’t merely selling parts.

He’s a collector himself.

And like so many people I’ve interviewed while writing The Glow That Won’t Go Out, his story begins long before there was a business.

It begins with Dad.

It Started in Dad’s Yard

What first got you interested in blow molds?

Thomas: I got interested when I was a little kid. My dad used to put out blow molds, and I ended up developing a love for them.

As I got older, I started buying new pieces for my dad’s house. When I eventually moved, I took them with me.

Today, Thomas estimates his collection has grown to more than 100 pieces, spread across Christmas, Halloween and a smaller number of Easter blow molds.

Sound familiar?

It should.

One of the most consistent things I’ve discovered while talking to collectors is that the obsession rarely starts with the collector.

It starts with somebody else.

Dad put them outside.

Grandma had a Santa.

The neighbors had a snowman.

The family drove around looking at Christmas displays.

Eventually the child who stared at those glowing figures grows up, gets a house…

…and realizes he can buy them himself.

This is how trouble starts.

Old School Wins

Thomas owns newer pieces, but ask him where his heart is and there’s not much hesitation.

Vintage.

Do you have favorite pieces?

Thomas: I like the old-school ones because they were made better. The paint jobs were better on them and lasted longer.

Some of my favorite pieces are the Victorian Dickens Christmas Carolers. I wish they had come out with more in that style.

I also have the four elves, which are really cool.

The Victorian-style carolers make sense as favorites.

vintage Victorian-style blow mold Carolers

They don’t simply look like Christmas decorations.

They look like Christmas itself—the idealized version we’ve collectively inherited from greeting cards, department-store windows and old holiday movies.

Thomas has plenty of more common molds too.

But that’s another thing collectors learn eventually:

Common doesn’t mean bad.

The Santa everybody’s seen a hundred times might be exactly the Santa somebody remembers from childhood.

Rarity can make something expensive.

It doesn’t necessarily make it meaningful.

Two Friends, $150 Each—and a Bunch of Light Cords

Then came the business.

Not with investors.

Not with a warehouse.

Not with some elaborate five-year entrepreneurial plan.

It started with Thomas asking his friend for help sourcing a light cord.

How did The Blow Mold Boys begin?

Thomas: The shop started about three years ago, in 2023.

We started out selling single C7 light cords.

The first year we didn’t sell many of them, and we thought it was a bust.

Then the next year, the C7 singles sold out.

That’s when things got interesting.

Thomas and his friend had each put approximately $150 into the venture.

Three hundred dollars total. Sounds like a winning Shark Tank pitch.

The first year wasn’t particularly encouraging.

Then customers showed up.

The partners reinvested what they made, purchasing additional cords and expanding into other products.

And Thomas found another way to feed the business:

buying and reselling blow molds.

Thomas: As we were doing that, I was buying blow molds and flipping them for more money to help with the business, which we still do today.

The Blow Mold Boys originated basically because I asked my friend to help me get light cords. I knew he was more savvy with that, and he did it.

We both started with $150 each.

We don’t take much of our profit for ourselves because we keep buying more products.

That’s a wonderfully unglamorous small-business origin story.

“Hey, can you help me get some light cords?”

Three years later, you’re running a blow mold business.

Selling the Stuff That Keeps the Old Stuff Glowing

Light cords were the beginning.

Today, The Blow Mold Boys carry a considerably broader selection of replacement electrical and mounting components.

Thomas lists:

C7 single light cords, C7 double light cords, E26 large-bulb light cord kits, backing plates, plastic and metal butterfly clips, C7 vampire sockets, male and female vampire plugs, and SPT-1 wire.

This might not sound as exciting as finding a rare Poloron at an estate sale.

But it’s an important part of keeping vintage blow molds alive.

A decoration manufactured decades ago can survive beautifully while its electrical hardware does not.

Plastic lasts.

Parts disappear.

Cords deteriorate.

Sockets fail.

Backing plates get lost.

And that’s how a perfectly good blow mold ends up sitting unlit in a garage.

It’s one of the themes I kept encountering while writing The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Preservation isn’t always glamorous.

Sometimes saving Christmas means replacing a cord.

What Actually Sells?

Thomas gets to see another side of collecting that individual collectors don’t necessarily see:

what people are actually buying.

What kinds of blow molds are consistently popular?

Thomas: A lot of the more popular pieces I sell are the soldiers, Santas and snowmen.

People also like the hard-to-find ones.

There’s just one problem with those.

Thomas: Usually when I get those, I keep them.

And there it is.

The fundamental flaw in opening a business that sells the exact things you personally collect.

Imagine running a bakery while being incapable of selling any particularly good cake.

Thomas buys blow molds partly to resell.

Then something unusual appears.

He looks at it.

The business owner says:

Sell it.

The collector says:

Absolutely not.

Guess which one wins?

The Haunted House That Never Made It to the Customer

Thomas gave me a perfect example.

What’s the best part of running the shop?

Thomas: The best part about running my shop is that me and my buddy have been best friends for years.

We like to bring vintage Christmas back to people’s houses.

And the best part is the hunt for the blow molds.

You’re always on the hunt for pieces that you never thought you could find—or something you didn’t want to pay that high price for. Hello, HGTV or A&E – here’s your next holiday reality show.

One business purchase included a Halloween haunted-house blow mold.

Presumably, the rational plan was:

Buy collection.

Separate inventory.

Price haunted house.

Sell haunted house.

Make profit.

Instead:

Thomas kept the haunted house.

And apparently this wasn’t an isolated incident.

Thomas: Usually when I get it, I keep it for my own collection. For example, the Halloween haunted house I picked up in a lot for our business, but I ended up keeping it for myself—as I have with many other ones too.

I just can’t keep them all.

This is why accountants should probably never allow blow mold collectors to classify inventory.

What Should You Charge for a Vintage Blow Mold?

If Thomas sees the buying and selling side regularly, I wanted to know whether he had a formula for pricing.

The answer is refreshingly simple.

There isn’t one.

What’s your advice to somebody selling a blow mold?

Thomas: There’s no real advice I can give to someone trying to sell their blow molds because every year people want different ones.

One year I can sell soldiers like crazy. Other years I have trouble.

You’ve got to find what people like and price it not too high, not too low.

That’s an important lesson for anyone who looks at a price online and assumes:

That’s what mine is worth.

Not necessarily.

Collector markets move.

Demand changes.

Condition matters.

Location matters.

Season matters.

And most importantly:

An asking price is not automatically a selling price.

The hottest item this Christmas might sit unsold next year.

Thomas sees soldiers, Santas and snowmen move consistently, but even those categories fluctuate.

So if you’re selling?

Research comparable pieces.

Look at condition.

Pay attention to what people are actually purchasing.

And price it where another human being might realistically want to buy it.

The Thrill of the Hunt Is Still the Best Part

For all the practical aspects of running The Blow Mold Boys—cords, clips, sockets, inventory and pricing—the thing Thomas enjoys most isn’t especially complicated.

Finding stuff.

That’s the addiction underneath the entire hobby.

You don’t know what’s at the next yard sale.

You don’t know what somebody is about to list online.

You don’t know what’s hiding in the back of a garage.

You don’t know whether the lot you’re buying for resale contains something you’ve been hunting for yourself for ten years.

Thomas said it perfectly:

“You’re always on the hunt for pieces that you never thought you could find.”

Anyone can order something that’s readily available.

The unforgettable finds are the ones you weren’t expecting.

The haunted house buried in a lot.

The Santa priced incorrectly at an estate sale.

The decoration you’ve refused to pay collector prices for suddenly sitting in front of you for twenty bucks.

That’s why collectors keep looking even after they have 100 pieces.

Or 300.

Or 1,000.

You’re never searching only for another blow mold.

You’re searching for the find.

From Dad’s Yard to The Blow Mold Boys

There’s something appropriately circular about Thomas’s story.

His dad put blow molds outside.

Thomas fell in love with them.

As he got older, he bought new pieces for Dad’s display.

Eventually those pieces followed Thomas when he moved.

The collection grew.

Then a need for replacement lighting turned into a conversation with a friend.

Two buddies each put in $150.

They tried selling C7 cords.

It didn’t work particularly well.

Until it did.

Then they reinvested.

Added products.

Bought blow molds.

Sold blow molds.

Kept too many blow molds.

And somewhere along the way, The Blow Mold Boys became a business.

Not because somebody looked at market research and identified a lucrative opportunity in illuminated polyethylene Christmas decorations.

Because two friends liked this stuff.

That’s how some of the best niche businesses begin.

There’s Just One Problem

Thomas has more than 100 blow molds.

He buys additional blow molds for the business.

Sometimes he sells them.

Sometimes he accidentally becomes emotionally attached to the inventory and moves it into his personal collection.

So what is the hardest part of simultaneously operating The Blow Mold Boys and being a collector?

Thomas asks the question every serious blow mold collector eventually confronts:

“Where do you store it?”

There it is.

The final boss of blow mold collecting.

Not price.

Not rarity.

Not faded paint.

Square footage.

A ceramic Christmas ornament can fit in a box.

A blow mold Santa is basically another person living in your house.

Snowmen don’t nest.

Soldiers don’t fold.

Haunted houses stubbornly remain the size of haunted houses.

Eventually every collector looks around and realizes they no longer own a garage.

They own a blow mold storage facility that happens to have a garage door.

And yet Thomas keeps hunting.

Of course he does.

Because somewhere out there is another piece he never expected to find.

Keeping the Glow Alive—One Cord at a Time

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why the people surrounding this hobby became such an important part of The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Thomas represents another piece of that ecosystem.

There are the collectors who save these decorations.

The restorers who repair them.

The historians who document them.

The manufacturers creating new ones.

The people running displays.

And there are small businesses supplying the decidedly unromantic parts that allow an old decoration to light up again. Guys like Thomas. Guys like Tony DePasquale at blowmolds.com.

A vintage Santa without a functioning light is still a Santa.

But plug in a new cord…

Put him outside…

Wait until dark…

And suddenly somebody driving past sees exactly what Thomas saw when he was a kid looking at his father’s display.

That’s how this keeps going.

One collector becomes another.

One Christmas becomes the next.

And one old piece of plastic gets another December to glow.

Maybe Thomas and his buddy aren’t simply selling cords after all.

They’re selling another Christmas.

Meet the People Keeping the Glow Alive

Thomas and The Blow Mold Boys of Massapequa Park, New York, are part of a growing community of collectors, sellers, restorers and enthusiasts keeping vintage holiday blow molds in circulation.

The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds by Curtiss Wayne Andrews explores the manufacturers, history, identification, restoration and collecting culture behind these glowing pieces of American holiday history.

Because finding the blow mold is only half the story.

You’ve still got to plug the thing in.

Raiders of the Lost Santa: My Search for the Four-Foot Christmas Relic That Vanished From My Childhood

A mysterious Santa, a Reddit clue, Harold Gale—and why collectors will crawl through an antique mall looking for something money can’t really buy

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

Somewhere out there is my Santa.

At least, that’s what I choose to believe.

He may be standing in an antique mall in Iowa with a $795 price tag hanging from his wrist.

He may be in somebody’s attic underneath a box labeled XMAS STUFF — DON’T THROW AWAY, which virtually guarantees their children will eventually throw it away.

He may be sitting in a barn.

He may have been destroyed decades ago.

Or—and this is the scenario I prefer—he is currently waiting for me in the back corner of an estate sale while a shaft of sunlight shines dramatically through a window and John Williams music begins playing.

Because I have apparently turned finding my grandparents’ Christmas decoration into Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And I’m completely fine with that.

The Santa at My Grandparents’ House

At the end of my book The Glow That Won’t Go Out, I put out a request to readers.

Help me find this Santa.

My grandparents lived in Nevada, Iowa, and sometime in the 1980s they had the approximately four-foot Santa you see in the photograph accompanying this article.

He wasn’t a blow mold.

But in my memory, he occupied the same universe.

Christmas decorations weren’t “holiday décor” when you’re a kid. You didn’t care who manufactured them, what year they were produced or whether they still had their original tags.

They simply appeared.

One day Grandma and Grandpa’s house looked normal.

Then Christmas happened.

Santa was there.

And because children possess the archival instincts of drunken raccoons, I did not think to turn him upside down and record the manufacturer’s information for a book I would write approximately four decades later.

This has proven inconvenient.

Then Reddit Gave Me a Name

Recently, someone looking at the photograph suggested a possibility:

Harold Gale.

And down the rabbit hole I went.

If you’re unfamiliar with Harold Gale, welcome to one of those glorious corners of collecting where you suddenly realize an object you’ve seen your entire life has an entire history hiding behind it.

Harold Gale wasn’t merely some guy manufacturing Santa dolls.

He helped create the Christmas America once saw through department-store windows.

Harold and Viola’s Santa Workshop

The story begins around 1946, when Harold Gale and his wife, Viola, began making Santa figures at home in Kansas City.

Harold Gale Santa Claus construction from 1946.

Harold had worked in department-store display, and the couple recognized a market for convincing Santa figures that retailers could use in their Christmas windows and displays. Early accounts describe them working nights and weekends, constructing figures using wire frames, fabric costumes and carefully finished faces.

This wasn’t “launch a startup” in the modern sense.

There was no venture-capital pitch.

No app.

No podcast called Disrupting Santa.

They made Santas.

With their hands.

The Gales reportedly put about $3,000 of their savings into the venture. As demand increased, their homegrown operation expanded until they had a roughly 3,000-square-foot factory employing dozens of workers.

Think about that.

A husband and wife making Christmas figures after their children went to bed eventually created a factory devoted to manufacturing Santa Claus.

That may be the most American business story ever told.

These Weren’t Just Santas. They Were Performers.

Gale’s larger creations were designed for retail display.

Some were animated.

Some waved.

Some moved.

Some emerged from chimneys.

There were elves, Mrs. Claus figures and other characters.

And these things had presence.

We’re talking about an era when department-store Christmas windows were events. Before you could order 400 LED lights from your phone while sitting on the toilet, retailers had to make you physically stop walking down the sidewalk.

A moving six-foot Santa could accomplish that.

Surviving large Gale displays demonstrate just how substantial these creations could be. Collectors have documented examples approaching six feet tall, while other authenticated animated models were considerably smaller.

Eventually the Santas came home.

In 1957, Gale introduced a roughly 15-inch Santa aimed at ordinary consumers rather than commercial display departments. Those smaller figures—with some versions sporting wonderfully period white belts and white boots—became enormously popular. By 1960, accounts say the company had produced more than 100,000 Santas.

There were different clothes.

Different colors.

Different faces.

Promotional versions.

And enough variations that today you can lose an entire evening comparing Santa Claus’s footwear on the Internet.

Ask me how I know.

The Faces Matter

One of the charms of Gale Santas is that many don’t have the sterile perfection of modern mass-produced decorations.

They have faces.

Expressions.

Personality.

Harold Gale’s daughter, Susan Gale Laird, later recalled that an artist known as Mrs. Ewing painted many of the faces, while Viola Gale developed clothing patterns and supervised seamstresses. She even remembered separating lamb’s wool for Santa beards while visiting the shop.

That’s the detail that gets me.

Lamb’s wool.

Hand-painted cheeks.

Sewn costumes.

These were commercial products, certainly.

But human hands were all over them.

That’s why two old Santas standing beside each other can somehow feel like two different guys.

One looks jolly.

One looks tired.

One looks like he knows exactly what you did in 1973 and has chosen not to involve the authorities.

So…Is My Santa a Harold Gale?

Here comes the frustrating part.

I don’t know.

And I’m not going to turn a tantalizing possibility into a fact simply because it makes a better story.

Gale absolutely produced large Santas for commercial displays, and collectors recognize recurring construction methods, facial styles, costumes and other characteristics. Large examples survive today.

But my evidence is currently one family photograph.

That’s not enough.

Looking closely at our Santa, I see details that make the suggestion intriguing, but I also see enough differences from readily documented Gale examples that I want much stronger evidence before declaring victory.

So the case remains open.

Which, unfortunately for everyone who knows me, means I now have another thing to hunt for.

Welcome to the Disease

This is where my Santa hunt intersects perfectly with blow-mold collecting.

Collectors understand what happens next.

You walk into an antique store supposedly looking for nothing.

That’s your first lie.

You tell your spouse:

“I’m just going to look around.”

Second lie.

Then you see something red approximately 70 feet away.

Your pulse changes.

You begin moving toward it while pretending you’re not moving toward it because another person is standing nearby and that person is now competition.

Is that Santa?

Wrong boots.

Keep moving.

Next booth.

Plastic snowman.

Empire?

Turn it around.

No marking.

Interesting seam.

Could be.

Take picture.

Google.

Walk twelve feet.

Another Santa.

Too small.

Next aisle.

Suddenly you have been inside the antique mall for two hours and are carrying a ceramic squirrel you had absolutely no intention of buying.

This is collecting.

Why Do We Do This?

I’ve thought about that question a lot while writing The Glow That Won’t Go Out. I thought about it a lot while contributing to Hoarders of History – 100 Timeless Collections That Reflect Who We Are, but I think about it even more now.

Why do adults become obsessed with finding old plastic Santas, discontinued ornaments, department-store displays, toys, signs, advertising pieces and decorations?

Because logically, it’s ridiculous.

We can buy a new Santa.

There are thousands of them.

Amazon will deliver one tomorrow.

That’s not the point.

We’re not looking for a Santa.

We’re looking for the Santa.

That’s an entirely different transaction.

The Indiana Jones Theory of Collecting

The best collecting adventures have three ingredients:

The artifact.
The mystery.
The story.

Indiana Jones doesn’t become excited because an object would look nice on a shelf.

He wants to know where it came from.

Who touched it?

Where did it disappear?

How did it survive?

And can he get to it before the Nazis?

Hopefully your local antique mall contains fewer Nazis.

But otherwise, the principle holds.

A vintage object becomes compelling when its history transforms it from a thing into an artifact.

That’s why I co-wrote Treasures, Trinkets, and Triumphs! The Unknown Critic’s Dusty Adventure Through America’s Top 100 Antique Shops.

Collecting isn’t really about accumulating possessions.

The great stories are about the hunt.

The flea market where you spotted something under a table.

The estate sale you almost didn’t attend.

The dusty antique shop where you found the object you’d been searching for for twenty years.

The seller who told you where it came from.

The thing you bought for $8 that turned out to be worth $800.

And, occasionally, the thing you paid $800 for that turned out to be worth $8.

We don’t discuss those.

The Value Nobody Can Put in a Price Guide

Suppose tomorrow somebody conclusively identifies my grandparents’ Santa.

Then suppose I find an identical example for sale.

What’s it worth?

$200?

$500?

$1,000?

To somebody else, maybe.

To me?

That’s where collecting economics falls apart.

Because I’m not purchasing four feet of old Christmas decoration.

I’m buying access to a room that doesn’t exist anymore.

My grandparents’ house.

Nevada, Iowa.

Christmas in the 1980s.

The furniture.

The decorations.

The television.

The smell of my Grandma’s perfect non-lumpy mashed potatoes with gravy.

The people who were there.

That Santa is a key.

That’s why nostalgia collectibles can generate emotions wildly disproportionate to their material value.

The object survived after the moment didn’t.

Harold Gale Understood Something

Harold and Viola Gale probably couldn’t have imagined people discussing their Santas online eighty years later.

Harold sold the business in the early 1970s and retired to California, according to his daughter’s later recollection. He died in 1982. The company continued after his departure and ultimately ceased production in 1988.

But the Santas survived.

They’re in collections.

Antique malls.

Estate sales.

Auctions.

Basements.

Christmas displays.

Some are battered.

Some have replacement beards.

Some no longer move.

Some have stains.

Some are missing pieces.

And people still want them.

One recent 2026 auction, for example, sold a Harold Gale Santa for $76, while specialty dealers currently ask considerably more for certain examples; rarity, size, condition, age and provenance can make the market highly variable.

But again:

Price isn’t the interesting part.

Survival is.

Somewhere Out There…

So my search continues.

Maybe the Santa in my grandparents’ photograph is Harold Gale.

Maybe someone reading this will recognize the face.

Maybe it’s another manufacturer entirely.

Maybe somebody has an old catalog showing the exact model.

Maybe someone in Iowa will email me:

“You’re not going to believe what’s been in my mother’s basement for 35 years.”

Those are the five greatest words in collecting.

Well, after:

“I don’t know what it’s worth.”

Because every collector secretly believes the next antique shop could contain the thing.

That’s why we pull over for flea markets.

That’s why we scan estate-sale photographs at midnight.

That’s why we dig through boxes.

That’s why we turn blow molds around looking for manufacturer’s marks.

That’s why a photograph of a Santa from forty years ago can send a grown man into the history of an obscure Kansas City Christmas-decoration company.

We’re searching for objects.

But we’re really searching for stories.

And every once in a while, if we’re incredibly lucky, we find a piece of our own.

So if you recognize this Santa…

Indiana Jones here is still looking.

Curtiss Wayne Andrews is the author of The Glow That Won’t Go Out, which explores the history, personalities and collecting culture surrounding vintage holiday blow molds, and Treasures, Trinkets, and Triumphs! The Unknown Critic’s Dusty Adventure Through America’s Top 100 Antique Shops.

The Glow That Won’t Go Out: Inside Brandon Gress’s Life With Thousands of Blow Molds

From a childhood K-Mart snowman to Hoarding for the Holidays, thousands of blow molds, a legendary Christmas display—and one unforgettable Angel Teddy Bear hunt

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

Today, I officially release a book about blow molds.

But here’s the thing.

The Glow That Won’t Go Out was never really supposed to be a book about plastic.

Yes, it’s filled with blow molds.

Santas. Snowmen. Reindeer. Candles. Nativity figures. Empire. General Foam. Union Products. Poloron. Beco. The manufacturers, the markings, the history, the hunt, the restoration and all the wonderfully obsessive details collectors care about.

But somewhere along the way, while researching and writing the book, something became obvious:

The interesting part isn’t simply what survived.

It’s why people refuse to let it disappear.

And I’m not sure anyone illustrates that better than Brandon Gress.

Readers of The Glow That Won’t Go Out already meet Brandon in the book through my look at Episode 3 of Hoarding for the Holidays, appropriately titled “Let It Blow (Mold).”

In the episode, Brandon and his mother, Lori, hunt for vintage Christmas decorations, go dumpster diving, laugh at themselves, and pursue a particularly elusive Angel Teddy Bear blow mold.

There’s even a wonderfully perfect ending to that particular story.

After finally finding the Angel Bear he had been hunting…

Brandon discovered another one he already owned buried in his storage shed two days later.

Collectors, I assume, require no explanation whatsoever.

But the television episode only scratches the surface.

Brandon’s relationship with blow molds began long before television cameras showed up. His collection now extends well into the thousands, and his family’s Christmas display has become an annual tradition for thousands of visitors.

It has also raised thousands of dollars for a children’s hospital.

So for the launch of The Glow That Won’t Go Out, I wanted to go back to Brandon.

I wanted to hear the story behind the story.

And appropriately enough, it begins with a snowman.

The $20 Snowman That Started Everything

When did you first get started collecting blow molds?

Brandon Gress: Blow molds have always been a part of my life.

Growing up in the early 2000s, you couldn’t pass a neighbor’s house without at least one holiday blow mold in their yard. Better yet—you couldn’t walk into any big-box store that did not sell blow molds.

I still have vivid memories of seeing blow molds in my local K-Mart and Walmart. And I still kick myself for not getting some of the pieces as a child!

My love for blow molds came from merely being exposed to them.

There were two houses by me that shaped my love for them. A home in Holmdel, New Jersey, on Richard’s Way, was the first time I remember being enamored by these pieces of plastic.

Another home right around the corner from me became my all-time favorite. “The house behind Toys R Us” became my inspiration for years.

The owner of this house, a fellow blow molder and exceptional friend, Tom, has become one of my closest friends in the hobby.

Making my mom and family members drive me by these houses became obsessive—and still is part of my holiday tradition.

Brandon Gress's childhood Grand Venture snowman blow mold from K-Mart — *The one that started it all: Brandon’s Grand Venture snowman from K-Mart, a childhood gift from his grandmother.*

Then came the piece that changed everything.

Brandon: For me, it was a small Grand Venture snowman from K-Mart.

Like any other five-year-old—ha!—I became obsessed with these plastic light-up pieces because of a snowman my grandmother bought me from the box store.

This blow mold, which would become a staple in my bedroom Christmas display—that every child has, of course!—is still used in my displays outside.

The tattered, faded K-Mart tag still clings to the backside of the piece as a reminder of simpler times and the catalyst for my lifelong blow mold obsession of well over a couple thousand molds.

That snowman is one of my favorite things in Brandon’s story.

Because it’s easy to look at a collection numbering in the thousands and assume collecting is about accumulation.

But there’s the original snowman.

Still there.

Still displayed.

Still wearing its battered K-Mart tag.

That’s what collecting is really about.

The Houses That Created a Collector

Richard's Way Christmas display in Holmdel New Jersey that inspired Brandon Gress — *Richard’s Way in Holmdel, New Jersey—the Christmas display Brandon credits with helping ignite his fascination with blow molds.*

Brandon Gress and his cousins visiting the Richard's Way Christmas display around 2004 — *Brandon and his three cousins at the Richard’s Way Christmas display, circa 2004.*

Look at that photograph and then look at Brandon’s display today.

There’s your origin story.

A kid gets driven past a spectacular Christmas house.

He stares at the lights and glowing plastic figures.

He asks to go back.

And back.

Eventually he starts building his own version.

This is how traditions propagate.

Not through instruction manuals.

Through wonder.

Christmas blow mold display known by Brandon Gress as the House Behind Toys R Us — *The “House Behind Toys R Us,” another childhood inspiration—and the home of Tom, who would eventually become one of Brandon’s closest friends in the hobby.*

Brandon’s tastes today run all over the blow mold world, although he admits a particular affection for cartoon-character molds and Empire Santas.

Choosing a single favorite, he says, would be like choosing a favorite child.

And as an elementary-school teacher?

He knows better.

His collection now extends well beyond a couple thousand molds, and some of his European auction purchases have cost thousands of dollars.

Brandon’s justification?

There are worse things to spend money on.

Every collector just nodded.

Then Television Called

If you watched Hoarding for the Holidays, you might assume Brandon’s collection was discovered specifically for that program.

Actually, television already knew the Gress family.

Their displays have appeared on ABC’s The Great Christmas Light Fight, Hallmark Channel’s Ready, Set, Glow, AOL’s All Is Bright and HGTV’s Hoarding for the Holidays. According to Brandon, his family never applied for any of them; casting producers approached them.

How did Hoarding for the Holidays happen?

Brandon: I was contacted by a casting producer explaining they were looking for “passionate Christmas enthusiasts who were crazy about collecting.”

Needless to say, we fit that bill!

We agreed to film with them and the rest is history.

On three excruciatingly hot August afternoons, we donned our Christmas best and played like it was the holidays.

We filmed all around town—anywhere from my own yard to antique stores—and even dumpsters.

We had a BLAST filming for this show.

Brandon Gress filming Hoarding for the Holidays with vintage blow molds

But there was one complication.

Brandon didn’t know the show’s title until filming had finished.

And then he saw the word:

Hoarding.

He wasn’t thrilled.

He worried that a genuine collecting passion might be presented as something exploitative or pathological. After talking with the production team, however, he was reassured that the title was tongue-in-cheek. When Brandon finally saw the finished episode, he says he was exceptionally proud of it and felt it captured just how hardcore holiday collectors can be.

That matters.

Because the best part of Brandon’s segment isn’t the size of the collection.

It’s the relationship at the center of it.

A Mother, a Son and a Completely Reasonable Dumpster Dive

One of my favorite elements of Episode 3—and something I wrote about in The Glow That Won’t Go Out—is Brandon’s relationship with his mother, Lori.

She doesn’t merely tolerate the hobby.

She’s in it.

When Brandon finds a goose blow mold at the thrift store, puts a wig on it and deadpans “add to cart,” Lori laughs.

When he decides discarded Christmas plastic might be waiting in neighborhood trash?

Mom drives.

There’s something important buried underneath the comedy.

Collecting can be generational.

A parent decorates.

A child remembers.

The child grows up.

Eventually those same decorations become something worth preserving because they’re attached to a person, a place and a particular December. A lot of this reminded me of my own mother who passed in 2024 and her extensive strawberry & Precious Moments collections, detailed in the book I co-authored, Hoarders of History.

That’s how a piece of molded plastic becomes an heirloom.

The Great Angel Teddy Bear Hunt

And then there’s the bear.

Every serious collector has one.

The piece that somehow keeps escaping.

The one you search for at antique stores, flea markets, auctions, Marketplace and every other place collectors congregate.

Brandon’s white whale was the Angel Teddy Bear blow mold.

The episode turns the search into a miniature Christmas adventure. It reminded me of American Pickers but with Brandon and Lori playing the parts of Mike & Frank, but sweeter!

And eventually, Brandon gets it.

The elusive Angel Teddy Bear appears at a thrift store in Red Bank, not far from home.

Victory.

Celebration.

Embrace the bear.

Roll credits.

Except blow mold collecting had one more joke to tell.

Two days later, Brandon found the Angel Teddy Bear he already owned buried in his crowded storage shed.

That may be the single most blow-mold-collector ending ever filmed.

When your collection reaches several thousand pieces, apparently you can become your own estate sale.

When a Christmas Display Becomes Something Bigger

This is where Brandon’s story changes.

Because the Gress House Holiday Light Spectacular isn’t merely a place to put the collection.

It has become part of the community.

Tell me about the display.

Brandon: My Christmas display—without sounding too cliché—has become a staple in my community.

“The Gress House Holiday Light Spectacular,” as it has become famously known on all social media platforms, started when I was very young.

I always decorated outside, but now it is next level.

I started doing it simply because it made me happy.

While it still makes me happy, it has so much more meaning now.

For one, it has become a holiday tradition for THOUSANDS of visitors annually.

Gress House Holiday Light Spectacular Christmas display with vintage blow molds — *The Gress House Holiday Light Spectacular—a childhood passion that grew into an annual community tradition.*

Then Brandon told me something that changes how you see those photographs.

Around 2013, the family began using the display to support a Children’s Miracle Network-affiliated hospital in New Jersey. Brandon says the display has raised thousands of dollars through the years. In 2023, the family’s contributions were recognized as part of a hospital expansion with a dedicated Post Office Play Area, chosen because of its natural connection to Christmas and letters to Santa.

Post Office Play Area supported by Gress House Holiday Light Spectacular fundraising — *The Post Office Play Area supported by the Gress family’s holiday-display fundraising—a reminder that a Christmas decorating obsession can become something much bigger.*

Brandon summed it up better than I could:

“It is truly crazy to think that some lights and pieces of plastic can bring so many people together.”

That’s the sentence.

That’s the entire book.

Vintage Empire Meets Brand-New Gemmy

I also wanted Brandon’s opinion on one of the livelier debates in blow mold collecting:

Old versus new.

His answer?

Why choose?

What’s your take on the newer generation of blow molds?

Brandon: I am in no way a blow mold purist.

In fact, my display is filled with new and old. A 1970s Santa sits alongside Gemmy counterparts from a few years ago.

It is all about your decorating style.

While some complain about the new blow molds coming out—how they flood the market and “just don’t make them like they used to!”—I feel quite the contrary.

I think Gemmy introducing these blow molds has been great for collectors.

I think we are in the blow mold renaissance.

That’s an interesting perspective, particularly from someone with such an enormous vintage collection.

Brandon argues that newer molds give younger collectors an affordable entry point while licensed characters can attract people who may never have gone hunting for a vintage Empire Santa. His own displays freely mix old and new. I write more about the old vs new debate here.

And then comes my favorite detail.

When Brandon was in fourth grade, he wrote to Gemmy for a persuasive-writing assignment asking the company to make the Miser Brothers.

Nearly twenty years later?

They’re available as holiday decorations.

Teacher-approved persuasive writing, apparently.

New Gemmy Christmas blow molds in Brandon Gress's collection for the 2026 season — *Waiting for Christmas: some of Brandon’s newer blow molds taking over the dining room ahead of the 2026 decorating season.*

Brandon’s Advice for New Blow Mold Collectors

So what does someone with several thousand pieces tell the person buying blow mold number one?

First:

You’re not building Brandon’s display next weekend.

And that’s okay.

His advice is to start where collectors have always started:

Yard sales.

Antique stores.

Flea markets.

And yes…

Garbage.

Brandon’s rules for beginning collectors

Brandon: You won’t build a massive display overnight.

It takes time, perseverance, and willingness to get a little dirty!

Oh, yes! You have to be willing to dumpster dive and garbage pick!

Another tip is to save your money.

Start a savings account at birth for this hobby!

Most importantly, have fun.

There are so many dedicated people who make this hobby so enjoyable. Meet fellow blow molders, join the groups online, and share your ideas, displays and finds.

The sense of community in this hobby is truly unmatched.

And then he adds one final piece of advice:

“Don’t yard sale in my neck of the woods—those blow molds are reserved for me!”

Fair warning.

His larger message, though, is community: meet other collectors, join groups, share displays and enjoy the hunt rather than expecting to assemble a massive collection overnight.

This Is Why I Wrote The Glow That Won’t Go Out

There’s a reason I wanted this interview to publish on October 1—the day The Glow That Won’t Go Out launches.

Look at Brandon’s first snowman again.

It’s not rare because an auction house says it’s rare.

It’s valuable because his grandmother gave it to him.

Look at the old photograph outside Richard’s Way.

A kid staring at someone else’s Christmas display eventually creates one that thousands of other kids will remember.

Look at Brandon and Lori hunting for the Angel Bear.

The object matters.

But the person standing next to you when you find it matters more.

Look at the hospital play area.

Somehow an obsession with illuminated plastic Christmas decorations helped create something for children who may be spending part of their own holiday in a hospital.

And look at the thousands of blow molds covering the Gress property today.

They’re not museum pieces.

They’re outside.

They’re glowing.

They’re doing what they were made to do.

That’s the glow that won’t go out.

Not electricity.

Memory.

Tradition.

Family.

Community.

And a new generation looking through the car window at somebody’s Christmas display thinking:

I want to do that someday.

Brandon was that kid once.

Maybe somewhere in the crowd outside the Gress House this Christmas…

the next Brandon is watching.

Keep the Glow Going

The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds by Curtiss Wayne Andrews is now available in e-book, paperback & hardcover (be patient if all those editions don’t show up exactly on Oct 1st!).

The book explores the history, manufacturers, identification, restoration and collecting culture behind vintage holiday blow molds—but more importantly, it tells the stories of the collectors, families and traditions keeping them glowing.

And yes.

Brandon, Lori and that Angel Teddy Bear are in it.

“Dad, I Have a $500 Emergency”: Inside Hope Holubowicz’s Vintage Blow Mold Obsession

She grew up making annual Menards trips with her dad, built a collection of roughly 300 vintage blow molds, and eventually landed on Hoarding for the Holidays. But one legendary Marketplace haul required some creative family financing.

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

There are emergencies.

Flat tires.

Broken water heaters.

Unexpected medical bills.

The transmission falls out of your car.

And then there are blow mold emergencies.

Hope Holubowicz once encountered the latter.

A Facebook Marketplace listing appeared containing approximately $1,000 worth of vintage blow molds.

There was only one problem.

Hope did not have $1,000.

What she did have were two parents.

So Hope independently contacted each of them and announced that she had a “$500 emergency.”

Mom sent $500.

Dad sent $500.

Problem solved.

At least until Mom and Dad eventually talked to each other.

Welcome to blow mold collecting.

Readers of The Glow That Won’t Go Out may already recognize Hope from my chapter featuring collector stories. Her story stood out to me because beneath all the collecting—and the comedy—is something that comes up again and again in this hobby.

Family.

Hope’s father helped introduce her to blow molds as a child. Years later, that relationship became part of her television appearance.

And somewhere in between came thrift stores, Beco Santas, a Don Featherstone jack-o’-lantern, approximately 300 pieces of glowing plastic…

…and one extremely questionable definition of the word “emergency.”

I had to know more.

Before There Was Marketplace, There Was Menards

When did you start collecting blow molds?

Hope: I would say I have been collecting blow molds for the last 10 years. It is hard to put an exact timeline on it because they had been a big part of my childhood during the early ’90s.

My personal collection started with thrifting.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time as a child going to rummage sales and thrift stores with both my mom and my aunt. Secondhand searching was a way of life for us.

I don’t have any early memories going into “real stores,” as my mom and aunt were always looking for a bargain.

That last sentence explains a lot.

Hope wasn’t introduced to collecting through an online collector group or price guide.

She was raised in the hunt.

Rummage sales.

Thrift stores.

Secondhand shops.

The possibility that something spectacular might be sitting on a shelf for five dollars because nobody else knew what it was.

But blow molds had another family connection.

Her dad.

Each year, Hope remembers going to Menards with him and choosing a new blow mold for the family’s Christmas display.

Those trips left an impression.

So did the glowing decorations themselves.

Years later, when Hope began spotting vintage blow molds while thrifting, something clicked.

She started bringing them home.

And then?

Well…

“It has been absolute, glorious havoc ever since.”

The $500 “Emergency”

Every collector has a story that probably sounds completely reasonable to other collectors and completely insane to everybody else.

This is Hope’s.

A Facebook Marketplace listing appeared in 2023.

The seller had accumulated a large collection.

The asking price was approximately $1,000.

Hope needed it.

Immediately.

There was just that minor funding problem.

So she texted Mom.

“I have a $500 emergency.”

Mom was visiting family in Pennsylvania and Venmoed the money.

Then Hope contacted Dad.

Same emergency.

Another $500.

A thousand dollars later, the blow molds were secured.

Hope repaid both parents within a week.

Then her parents happened to have a conversation.

Dad asked Mom whether she ever found out what Hope’s mysterious $500 emergency had been.

You can probably see where this is going.

The truth emerged.

The emergency was Christmas decorations.

Dad’s response?

“Hope, that is NOT an emergency.”

He then reportedly began explaining the types of situations that actually constitute emergencies.

Which was unnecessary.

Because every serious collector reading this already understands that a once-in-a-lifetime Marketplace blow mold haul clearly falls somewhere between house fire and medical evacuation on the emergency scale.

Sorry, Dad.

I’m siding with Hope.

The $25 Haunted House—and Her Holy Grail

That legendary haul produced one of Hope’s favorite pieces:

a green Haunted House she got for $25.

Hope's prized green Haunted House blow mold.

But her collection contains other favorites.

Which blow molds stand out the most?

Hope: I think for me my love for my Beco Santas and my Don Featherstone JOL bunch is not so much due to their value but how kitschy they both look.

Like I said in a local news interview:

“I am a 1990s baby living in a 1950s Christmas!”

That’s a pretty fantastic description of the appeal.

Because Hope isn’t merely collecting old Christmas decorations.

She’s curating an aesthetic.

The Beco Santas.

Hope's collection of vintage Beco Santas.

Vintage Halloween.

Mid-century colors.

Old appliances and fixtures.

Christmas decorations that look like they escaped from somebody’s living room decades ago.

Her most expensive blow mold purchase to date was $175 for a Don Featherstone Happy Halloween jack-o’-lantern group.

It’s also what Hope calls her holy grail.

Hope's holy grail find - a Happy Halloween Don Featherstone piece.

And that’s an important distinction.

Expensive doesn’t automatically mean beloved.

Rare doesn’t automatically mean desirable.

The best collection is ultimately a reflection of the person assembling it.

Hope knows exactly what hers is supposed to look like.

Kitschier the better.

Then Instagram Delivered a Very Suspicious Message

By the time Hope had built a substantial collection, she had begun sharing it online.

Then one day a message appeared on Instagram.

Someone claimed to be interested in putting her on television.

Hope’s immediate reaction was reasonable:

I’m being catfished.

How did Hoarding for the Holidays find you?

Hope: I received a message on Instagram from one of the producers or casting directors saying that they loved my collection and personality from watching my saved stories.

At first I thought I was being catfished.

One day after school I was checking my personal email and saw the message. I went into my co-teacher’s classroom and showed her.

We were both thinking, “Yeah right, next comes the question of sending my credit card information.”

But that moment never came.

Instead, Hope went through three rounds of interviews.

Then the network selected her.

And suddenly a woman who describes herself as a typical thirty-something working a typical job—and who admits she has an easier time spending money on old plastic yard ornaments than saving it—was preparing to have her collection filmed for television.

Three Days of Filming—and One Very Important Co-Star

Production lasted three days. Hope said the production crew was the nicest group of people she’s ever met. “They made me feel so at home in my own home going through such a new and different experience of acting!”

Hope and her dad with the production crew of Hoarding for the Holidays, episode #1 "A Real Life Elf."

But Hope’s collection wasn’t the only thing producers found interesting.

They noticed Hope and her father together.

How much of the father-daughter relationship was real?

According to Hope:

All of it.

Hope: Because of the dynamic between my dad and me—he is my best friend and nothing about our on-camera banter was acted—the casting directors wanted our father-daughter story to be a part of the show.

After all, my dad is the one who got me into blow molds back when I was a child.

That makes their scenes considerably better.

Hope and her dad filming for HGTV's Hoarding for the Holidays, episode #1 "A Real Life Elf."

You’re not watching two people manufacture banter for television.

You’re watching a father who helped create a collector…

…now dealing with the consequences.

And apparently there have been consequences.

One involves a Tasmanian Devil.

The Taz Incident

During Hope’s childhood, her father owned a Tasmanian Devil blow mold. Yes, the same one I wrote about here. Small world.

Then, sometime in the early 2000s, somebody stole it from the family’s yard.

Hope says:

“He has never fully recovered from it.”

Having spent enough time talking to blow mold collectors, I believe her.

This is another strange characteristic of these decorations.

People remember them.

You can describe an old blow mold somebody hasn’t seen in thirty years and suddenly they remember exactly where it stood.

Beside the garage.

Under the front window.

Next to the mailbox.

And if somebody stole it?

Apparently the statute of limitations on emotional resentment does not apply.

Dad, if you’re reading this:

I hope Taz finds his way home someday. Or, if you’re longing for a replacement I think they’re going for around $900 these days.

“I Am Not a Hoarder”

There’s one part of the television experience Hope would particularly like to clarify.

The title.

Hoarding for the Holidays.

Hope has a response.

Hope would like the record corrected

Hope: I want to set the record straight—I am in fact not a hoarder but a collector.

And with roughly 300 blow molds, she has certainly committed to the distinction.

Her collection isn’t thrown indiscriminately into a pile.

Hope says her pieces live inside her home, rather than being subjected to outdoor weather.

They’re part collection, part decoration and part lifestyle.

Which leads to one of the strongest differences between Hope and some of the other collectors I’ve interviewed.

New Blow Molds? Hope Has Thoughts.

Some collectors happily mix vintage Empire with brand-new Gemmy.

Hope does not.

What’s your opinion of newer blow molds?

Hope: I don’t own any blow molds that are post-1990s.

Like much else in life—such as my Frigidaire turquoise stove, or my Kohler aqua matching sink and toilet—they don’t make it like they used to!

I find new blow molds cheap.

No offense to anyone who likes ’em!

I am not here to yuk your yum.

And this is why interviewing collectors is more interesting than declaring that there’s one correct way to collect.

Brandon Gress told me he happily mixes old and new and believes we’re living through a blow mold renaissance.

Richard Gierlich has gone so far as to make new blow molds.

Hope?

Give her the old stuff.

That’s collecting.

People develop preferences.

They debate.

They disagree.

And ultimately everybody goes home and plugs in whatever makes them happy.

Hope’s house just happens to stop somewhere around 1999.

How to Find Blow Molds in the Wild

Hope started as a thrifter.

So I wanted to know whether someone can still build a collection that way.

Her answer?

Yes.

But you’re going to have to work harder.

What’s your advice for someone starting today?

Hope: Now they are hard to come by in thrift stores, but every now and then I have some good luck.

The key to thrifting is going regularly, and to your least favorite stores.

That’s where the random unicorn sits waiting to be found—not at your favorite shop.

That might be my favorite collecting advice I’ve heard yet.

Everyone searches the obvious places.

The antique mall known for vintage Christmas?

Already picked.

The trendy thrift store with carefully curated displays?

Everybody checks it.

That slightly depressing thrift shop you don’t particularly enjoy visiting?

That’s where your $8 Beco Santa is hiding.

Go there.

Hope’s Four Rules of Blow Mold Collecting

Hope gave me four pieces of advice.

They’re worth preserving almost exactly as she gave them.

1. Spend decent money on decent-condition pieces. Hope isn’t interested in badly faded or heavily weathered examples, particularly because her approximately 300 blow molds are displayed indoors.

2. Once you buy one, expect to lose sleep over buying your next. There is currently no known cure.

3. Replace questionable old electrical components. Hope replaces aging cords and uses LED bulbs in her collection.

And finally:

4. Understand that blow mold collecting is not for the faint of heart.

Most people won’t understand why you care so much about old plastic Christmas decorations.

Hope thinks that’s part of what makes the community special.

I think she’s right.

A 1990s Kid Living in a 1950s Christmas

There’s something wonderfully circular about Hope’s story.

As a kid, Dad took her to Menards.

They picked out a blow mold.

They brought it home.

They plugged it in.

Years pass.

The kid grows up.

She starts thrifting.

One blow mold comes home.

Then another.

Then approximately 298 more.

Eventually a television producer discovers her collection online and puts Hope and her dad on a television show about people who are completely, hopelessly obsessed with Christmas.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, Hope needs an emergency $1,000.

When I was writing The Glow That Won’t Go Out, stories like Hope’s became as important to me as documenting manufacturers and identifying old molds.

Because objects don’t create traditions by themselves.

People do.

A Beco Santa isn’t nostalgic because it was manufactured decades ago.

It’s nostalgic because somebody remembers it.

A blow mold becomes special when Dad bought it.

Grandma displayed it.

The family drove past it.

Someone rescued it from a thrift store.

Someone else spent twenty years trying to replace the one that was stolen.

The plastic survives.

But people provide the glow.

Hope describes herself as:

“A 1990s baby living in a 1950s Christmas.”

I can’t think of a better way to explain why vintage blow molds are still here.

Every generation borrows a little Christmas from the one before it.

Then adds something of its own.

And passes the glow along.

Meet More of the Collectors in The Glow That Won’t Go Out

Hope Holubowicz and her wonderfully questionable $500 emergency are featured in The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds by Curtiss Wayne Andrews.

The book explores the history, manufacturers, identification, restoration and collecting culture behind vintage holiday blow molds—and the amazing people who refuse to let these pieces disappear.

If you grew up staring at a glowing Santa through the back seat window…

this book was written for you.

When a Dummy Becomes a Friend: Why Ventriloquism Still Has Something to Say

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

In the summer of 2014, I walked into a hotel in Hebron, Kentucky, and found myself surrounded by hundreds of people talking to themselves.

Except, of course, they weren’t.

They were talking to wooden boys, old men, animals, monsters, children, wisecracking sidekicks and characters that existed somewhere in that strange territory between object and personality.

I’d gone to the Vent Haven International Ventriloquist ConVENTion with my wife & stepson, and I wasn’t prepared for how much I would love it.

I had always been fascinated by ventriloquism, especially after producing & starring in my own local children’s TV show in Iowa that featured a gaggle of safari-themed puppets. But seeing the art practiced by hundreds of people in one place was something entirely different.

There were professionals. Hobbyists. Collectors. Beginners. Kids carrying their first puppet. Performers who had spent decades perfecting movements most audience members would never consciously notice.

And everywhere you looked, there were cases.

Lots and lots of cases.

Then one would open.

And somebody would come out.

That was the moment I understood that ventriloquism is about much more than learning how to talk without moving your lips.

It’s about creating somebody who wasn’t there before.

And somehow convincing the rest of us that he was.

My Trip to Vent Haven

The 2014 Vent Haven ConVENTion took place July 16–19 in Hebron, Kentucky, continuing a gathering that had already become something of a pilgrimage for people who loved the art. Contemporary accounts described the event as part convention, part education and part annual family reunion.

That’s exactly how it felt to me.

I was blown away by the sheer depth of the hobby.

You might arrive thinking ventriloquism means a performer sitting on a stool with a dummy on his knee.

Spend a few hours at Vent Haven and that definition falls apart.

There is voice technique.

Character development.

Comedy writing.

Puppet manipulation.

Figure construction.

Timing.

Acting.

Audience interaction.

Collecting.

Restoration.

History.

And perhaps most importantly, there is an enormous community built around preserving and advancing an art form that popular culture periodically declares dead.

The current Vent Haven organization describes its annual gathering in similar terms: performances, lectures, workshops, open mics, dealer rooms and opportunities for everyone from beginners to established professionals. The museum says the annual gathering now attracts more than 400 ventriloquists and enthusiasts each July.

But statistics don’t quite explain it.

The thing I remember is the enthusiasm.

Nobody had to explain why they cared.

Everybody already understood.

If you’ve ever had a hobby that other people regard as a little unusual, you know how powerful that can be.

For a few days, you aren’t the person with the weird hobby.

You’ve found your people.

The Amazing Story Behind Vent Haven

The convention’s spiritual center is nearby Vent Haven Museum, which describes itself as the world’s only museum devoted exclusively to ventriloquism.

And its origin story sounds almost like something I would invent.

William Shakespeare Berger was a Cincinnati businessman and amateur ventriloquist. He began working for the Cambridge Tile Company as a teenager and eventually became its president.

But his other great passion was ventriloquism.

In 1910, Berger purchased his first figure, Tommy Baloney.

One figure became more.

Then considerably more.

By the 1930s and 1940s, his collection had grown so large that what began inside his home expanded into something extraordinary. Berger preserved not simply figures, but photographs, correspondence, memorabilia and the history surrounding the performers who had brought these characters to life.

Vent Haven eventually became a museum.

Walking through a collection like that changes the way you look at a ventriloquist figure.

Without the performer, it’s wood, paint, fabric and mechanical parts.

But then you learn who operated it.

You see photographs.

You hear stories.

You discover the routines it performed.

And suddenly you’re not looking at an old dummy anymore.

You’re looking at the remains of a partnership.

That’s strangely moving.

Ventriloquism Is Much Older Than Charlie McCarthy

The history of ventriloquism stretches back far beyond show business.

Its early forms were associated with supernatural or religious practices before the technique gradually migrated toward entertainment. By the 18th century, performers were appearing at fairs and public gatherings, often creating the illusion that voices were coming from somewhere else entirely.

The familiar ventriloquist-and-dummy partnership developed later.

One of the pivotal figures was British performer Fred Russell, often called the father of modern ventriloquism.

Russell helped establish the format we immediately recognize today: instead of surrounding himself with numerous figures, he concentrated on one principal character, Coster Joe, and built the performance around the relationship between performer and figure.

Fred Russel and Coster Joe famous ventriloquist.

That’s an incredibly important change.

Because ventriloquism stopped being merely:

“Look what I can do with my voice.”

And became:

“Meet this guy.”

That’s the magic.

Then Edgar Bergen Did Something Completely Ridiculous

He became a superstar ventriloquist…

on radio.

Think about that.

Ventriloquism is supposedly based on the illusion that the performer isn’t speaking.

Radio listeners couldn’t see Edgar Bergen’s mouth in the first place.

It shouldn’t have mattered.

Yet Bergen and Charlie McCarthy became enormously popular, demonstrating something important about the art: audiences weren’t merely fascinated by Bergen’s technique.

They loved Charlie.

Edger Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, ventriloquism.

Bergen’s radio program became a major success beginning in 1937, and Charlie McCarthy developed into a celebrity in his own right.

That lineage continued through performers such as Paul Winchell, Jimmy Nelson and Shari Lewis and eventually into modern performers including Jeff Dunham, Terry Fator, Jay Johnson, Nina Conti, Paul Zerdin and Darci Lynne Farmer.

Different generations.

Different puppets.

Different comedy.

Same basic miracle:

One human being convinces you there are two people onstage.

The Part Beginners Don’t Expect

Learning ventriloquism involves technique, obviously.

You practice substitutions for difficult sounds.

You work on keeping your lips still.

You learn breathing and projection.

But eventually you discover that getting the voice right isn’t enough.

Your character needs a personality.

What does he like?

What irritates him?

How old is he?

Why does he tolerate you?

What does he think of the audience?

Is he smarter than you?

Does he think he’s smarter than you?

That’s where ventriloquism becomes writing.

And acting.

And improvisation.

And psychology.

A great character shouldn’t simply sound different from the ventriloquist.

He should think differently.

That’s one reason keeping a journal can be surprisingly valuable.

Why I Created a Ventriloquist Journal

That fascination ultimately inspired my Ventriloquist Journal.

The idea wasn’t to create something that magically teaches ventriloquism between breakfast and lunch.

There are wonderful teachers and resources for learning technique.

A journal serves another purpose.

It gives you somewhere to develop the act.

Use it to record character ideas.

Write possible names.

Experiment with personalities.

Keep jokes that unexpectedly occur to you at 11:47 at night.

Develop routines.

Record what worked during practice.

Write down what absolutely bombed.

Keep notes about voices.

Sketch costume ideas.

Develop character backstories.

Track performances.

Record advice you hear from other ventriloquists.

And most importantly, capture ideas before they disappear.

Because creative ideas are remarkably confident about announcing themselves while you’re driving and remarkably unwilling to return when you finally sit down at your desk.

A journal becomes the workshop behind the workshop.

It documents how an object slowly becomes a character.

There Is Something Wonderfully Analog About It

Maybe that’s another reason I still love this hobby.

Ventriloquism is stubbornly human.

Yes, figures have become more sophisticated. Materials change. Performers use social media. Videos travel around the world instantly.

But the central mechanism hasn’t really changed.

A person picks up a character.

The character looks at the audience.

The mouth opens.

And somebody laughs.

No algorithm can manufacture what happens next.

The audience understands intellectually that the figure isn’t alive.

They can see the performer’s hand operating it.

They know where the voice originates.

And within a few minutes…

they’re looking at the puppet when it talks.

Watch an audience sometime.

It’s remarkable.

We voluntarily believe.

What I Remember Most About 2014

More than a decade later, that’s what sticks with me about that trip to Hebron.

Not simply the technique.

Not simply the famous performers.

Not even the incredible figures.

It was seeing hundreds of people who had decided that this unusual old art form was worth keeping alive.

Some wanted careers.

Some wanted to improve their acts.

Some collected figures.

Some performed for churches, schools or community organizations.

Some were simply fascinated by ventriloquism.

It didn’t matter.

They all spoke the same strange language.

The Vent Haven ConVENTion has continued that tradition. In fact, 2026 marked its 50th annual gathering, with performers and educators including Darci Lynne Farmer, Jay Johnson, Willie Tyler and Jeff Dunham appearing on the anniversary schedule.

Fifty gatherings devoted to an art form people keep predicting will disappear.

That’s something worth celebrating.

Find Your Character

If you’ve ever been curious about ventriloquism, don’t worry about becoming the next Edgar Bergen or Jeff Dunham.

Start smaller.

Find a puppet.

Try a voice.

Invent a personality.

Write a conversation.

Keep notes.

Make mistakes.

Let the character change.

And if you become serious about the hobby, make the pilgrimage to Northern Kentucky someday.

Visit Vent Haven.

Attend the ConVENTion.

Walk into a room containing hundreds of people carrying cases and realize that practically every one of those cases contains someone they’d like you to meet.

I experienced it in Hebron in 2014.

I went there interested in ventriloquism.

I left understanding why people fall in love with it.

Because ventriloquism isn’t really about throwing your voice.

It’s about finding one.

— Curtiss Wayne Andrews

Get the Vent Journal here.

Thousands of Memories Still Glowing: Inside Nick’s Lifelong Blow Mold Obsession

He bought his first blow molds for $1 each as a kid. Today his collection numbers in the thousands. The Hoarding for the Holidays collector talks restoration, television, auctions and why the old Poloron and Beco pieces still matter.

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

There was a time when vintage blow molds weren’t vintage.

They weren’t “collectibles,” either.

They were Christmas decorations.

They sat outside houses.

They got rained on.

Snow piled against them.

Kids knocked them over.

Parents shoved them into garages sometime after New Year’s Day, where they waited patiently for another Christmas.

And if you happened upon a few old ones at a flea market?

Apparently, you could buy them for a dollar apiece.

Nick remembers those days.

Very well.

Because that’s essentially how his collection started.

From a $1 Flea-Market Find to Thousands of Blow Molds

While putting together The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds, I wanted to capture something that’s difficult to communicate unless you’ve spent time around serious collectors:

This hobby can get completely out of hand.

I mean that affectionately.

One Santa becomes two.

Then you need a snowman.

Then you discover that Empire made six versions of something you thought was one version.

Then somebody mentions Poloron.

Eventually, you’re standing in a building surrounded by several thousand pieces of molded Christmas plastic and explaining that, technically, you don’t have a problem because some of them still need repairs.

Nick understands.

Readers of The Glow That Won’t Go Out may remember him from the section about Hoarding for the Holidays. In the program’s first episode, A Real Life Elf, he appears surrounded by an extraordinary collection of vintage holiday decorations.

There’s also a smaller detail I mentioned in the book that collectors probably appreciated.

Nick wore the hobby.

Literally.

His gray shirt read:

“Plug In Those Vintage Blow Molds and Light Up Your Christmas.”

It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate wardrobe choice when you’re being filmed in the middle of a blow mold collection. Want that shirt or one like it? Click here.

But the brief appearance in my book left me wanting to know more.

How does someone accumulate a collection numbering in the thousands?

What’s it like letting a television crew into that world?

And perhaps most importantly, how do you keep all that aging plastic alive?

So I went back to Nick.

Here’s our conversation.

A Conversation With Nick of Saint Nick’s Display

How did you first get started collecting blow molds?

Nick: I first got started collecting blow molds when I was about six or seven. I was going around to the local flea market and happened to see a vendor selling some for a buck each.

Yes, only one dollar.

At the time I saw them and was amazed by the size of them. I didn’t even realize they lit up until I got them home.

My collection consists of several thousand decorations. Not all are used due to needing repairs, but I try to put out what I can each year.

My favorites have to be anything made by Poloron or Beco—the original OG blow mold companies from the 1960s.

Let’s Stop at “One Dollar” for a Moment

There are younger collectors reading this who may need a minute.

One dollar.

Today, collectors can spend considerable money chasing desirable vintage pieces.

Nick’s childhood introduction to the hobby happened in another universe.

He wasn’t studying sold listings on his phone.

He wasn’t competing against twenty-seven other people who had received the same Marketplace notification.

He was a kid at a flea market who saw some enormous plastic Christmas decorations and thought they looked cool.

Then he brought them home and discovered something even better.

They lit up.

That’s the kind of experience that creates a collector.

And it points to something I kept returning to while writing The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

For many collectors, this isn’t fundamentally about monetary value.

It’s about memory.

A particular Santa can transport someone back to their grandparents’ lawn.

A snowman can look exactly like the one that stood beside the driveway every December.

You aren’t merely collecting plastic.

Sometimes you’re buying your way back into Christmas when you were seven years old.

Nick just happened to start doing it while he actually was seven years old.

When HGTV Comes Calling

Nick’s collection eventually became large enough to attract attention beyond the blow mold community.

He appeared in Hoarding for the Holidays, where viewers got to see both his indoor and outdoor Christmas displays.

But the invitation didn’t initially inspire excitement.

It inspired suspicion.

How did Hoarding for the Holidays discover you?

St. Nick's Display from Hoarding for the Holidays

Nick: I was found for the show Hoarding for the Holidays through my display page on Facebook, Saint Nick’s Display.

They randomly sent me a message one day in the spring, which I originally thought was a spam message and almost ignored.

I can say, having dealt with other shows that were less than stellar to me, I was extremely impressed by HGTV and Exit 4 and all the crew for how professional and kind they all were to me.

It felt like being with friends during the filming.

They were so helpful and even let me tell them how I liked things done.

I couldn’t have been happier with how they filmed us and treated not only me but all my family and friends. They are A-plus people, and I’d work with them again.

Were you happy with the final show?

Nick: I was extremely happy with the final product.

It showed my indoor display and my outdoor display.

And even the mucky places I’d go for Christmas decorations!

That last part matters.

Because every serious collector knows the beautiful display is only half the story.

Nobody photographs the crawlspace.

Nobody makes an Instagram Reel celebrating the moment you climb over fourteen storage totes because you’re convinced the missing light plate is in the box against the back wall.

Nobody sees you standing in mud negotiating over a faded Santa that appears to have spent the previous decade beneath somebody’s porch.

Television usually wants the spectacle.

Nick appreciated that this production captured more of the actual world surrounding the spectacle—and treated the people in it respectfully.

Keeping Thousands of Blow Molds Alive

Having several thousand vintage decorations creates another issue:

Several thousand vintage decorations eventually become several thousand aging vintage decorations.

Paint fades.

Surfaces weather.

Plastic gets damaged.

Parts disappear.

That’s how Nick became interested in restoration.

What got you started restoring blow molds?

Nick: I got into blow mold repairs simply because mine started to peel and get weathered over time.

Having had some of mine for years at that point, they needed a refresh.

I did many different things and ended up finding that airbrushing was the closest I could get them to original.

At first, like all artists, you make mistakes with types of paints and materials. But time helps, and you learn to grow and become better at it.

There’s an important word in that answer:

Artist.

Good restoration isn’t simply covering faded plastic with paint.

You’re trying to preserve the visual character of something manufactured decades ago.

Color.

Opacity.

Edges.

Overspray.

The peculiar look created by mass-production techniques.

Make something too perfect and it can stop looking vintage.

Make the wrong repair and you can create a problem worse than the one you started with.

Light blue painted Santa Claus on train blow mold, vintage.

Which brings us to Nick’s most important restoration advice.

Please Don’t “Fix” It Until You Know How to Fix It

What’s your biggest recommendation for someone considering restoration?

Nick: For those looking to get blow molds restored or fixed, I can only recommend making sure they use the right products and hopefully not DIY it in a way that will entirely ruin the plastic or alter an antique in a way that can never be fixed.

This is worth emphasizing.

Old plastic isn’t a practice canvas.

Before attacking a valuable vintage piece with paint, solvent, adhesive, heat or some restoration hack you saw in a 37-second video, find out what you’re dealing with.

Sometimes the smartest restoration decision is:

Don’t touch it yet.

Research the manufacturer.

Identify the material.

Talk to experienced restorers.

Practice techniques on something expendable.

Determine whether a repair is reversible.

The objective shouldn’t necessarily be to make a 60-year-old blow mold look like it rolled out of the factory yesterday.

The objective is to help it survive.

That’s a recurring theme throughout The Glow That Won’t Go Out:

Preservation beats perfection.

display of airbrushed blow mold Christmas carollers

Then There’s the Jones House Auction

For collectors, online marketplaces have transformed the hunt.

But there’s something an online listing can’t replicate:

Standing in a room full of people who immediately understand why you’re excited about an old piece of glowing plastic.

Nick has been attending the Jones auction for more than a decade.

What is the Jones House Auction experience like?

Nick: I have been going to the Jones auction since its creation over a decade ago.

About the time I was in high school, it first started to be a blow mold auction. It was extremely cheap at the time before the trends happened.

It’s very cool to be so local to that auction. I’m only about 25 minutes away.

I would recommend going if you enjoy the social aspect of being around other like-minded collector people.

That last sentence may explain why physical collector events continue to matter.

You can buy something online.

You can research it online.

You can discuss it online.

But collecting has always had a social component.

Swap meets.

Flea markets.

Auctions.

Estate sales.

Christmas displays.

People leaning over a table saying:

“I’ve been looking for one of these for fifteen years.”

That’s the culture surrounding the objects.

And sometimes that’s more memorable than whatever you brought home.

What Changed?

Nick’s collecting life spans an interesting period in the hobby.

He remembers the $1 flea-market blow mold.

He remembers auctions before prices began climbing.

Now he lives in a world where vintage Christmas has become its own collecting category and previously overlooked decorations can inspire serious competition.

But there’s an irony here.

The increased attention that makes certain pieces harder and more expensive to acquire is also helping ensure they’re preserved.

People are identifying manufacturers.

Documenting variations.

Creating replacement parts.

Learning restoration techniques.

Sharing old catalogs.

Recording histories.

And introducing new collectors to names such as Empire, General Foam, Union Products, Poloron and Beco.

The objects aren’t anonymous lawn decorations anymore.

They’re artifacts of American Christmas.

That’s a large part of why I wrote The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Several Thousand Reasons the Glow Won’t Go Out

Look again at the photograph of Nick standing in his collection.

Don’t look at him at first.

Look behind him.

Santa.

Snowmen.

Angels.

Reindeer.

Characters.

Rows upon rows of plastic faces.

Every one came from somewhere.

Somebody originally bought each one.

Somebody put it outside.

Some kid saw it glowing through a window.

Eventually it was packed away.

Years passed.

Families moved.

Decorating styles changed.

Somehow, it survived.

And eventually one of those pieces wound up with a collector like Nick.

That’s why the title The Glow That Won’t Go Out means more to me than the literal light inside these decorations.

The glow is the memory attached to them.

Nick bought his first ones when he was six or seven.

All these years later, he’s still restoring them, displaying them, hunting for them and surrounding himself with thousands of them every Christmas.

The collection got considerably larger.

The kid who was amazed to discover those $1 flea-market decorations actually lit up?

I’m not sure he ever completely left.

And maybe that’s the whole point.

Rainbow airbrushed blow mold snowman and painted Santa & snowman blow molds, courtesy of Nick.

Discover More Stories From the Blow Mold Community

Nick and Hoarding for the Holidays are featured in The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds by Curtiss Wayne Andrews.

The book explores the manufacturers, history, identification, restoration and collecting culture behind the glowing plastic decorations that became fixtures of the American Christmas landscape.

But just as importantly, it’s about the people who refuse to let that glow disappear.

From Collector to Creator: How Richard Gierlich Is Trying to Keep the Blow Mold Tradition Alive

His obsession started with his grandparents’ 48-inch Empire Santa. Then Richard Gierlich did something most collectors only dream about: he started making new blow molds.

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

Most blow mold collectors spend their time looking backward.

We hunt for the Empire Santa that stood on somebody’s porch in 1974.

We search Marketplace for the General Foam snowman we remember from childhood.

We dig through old catalogs, inspect manufacturer markings, compare paint variations and occasionally drive an unreasonable distance because somebody posted three terrible photographs of what might be the piece we’ve been searching for.

Richard Gierlich did all of that.

Then he asked a considerably more complicated question:

What if I made one?

Not repaired one.

Not repainted one.

Not found one forgotten in somebody’s garage.

Actually made a new blow mold.

That question eventually became Richard’s Holiday Shop—and sent a lifelong collector into the decidedly less romantic world of product design, manufacturing, painting, molds, overseas production, freight, warehousing and preorders.

In other words, Richard discovered what happens before the blow mold reaches the lawn.

And his story begins exactly where so many blow mold stories begin.

At his grandparents’ house.

The Santa on the Porch

What first got you interested in blow molds?

Richard Gierlich: I first got interested in blow molds thanks to my grandparents. They had the Empire 48″ Santa that they would set on their porch every year, and as a kid, I always looked forward to seeing him.

My collection is pretty large now. I love both the new and old pieces, so I’m always looking for the newest stuff when it hits stores, but I also love finding that older piece on Marketplace or stumbling across a rare yard sale find.

That’s part of the fun of collecting for me—you never really know what you’re going to find.

That answer could have come from dozens of collectors I spoke with while researching The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Different decoration.

Same story.

There was one at Grandma’s house.

Or Dad put one beside the driveway.

Or the neighbors had a Santa you could see glowing from the back seat of the family car.

We remember these things because Christmas decorations become landmarks in childhood.

Richard’s landmark was a four-foot Empire Santa.

And unlike many childhood decorations that disappear somewhere along the way, Richard knows exactly where that Santa is today.

The Blow Mold He Was Always Going to Inherit

Do you have a favorite piece?

Richard: Yes! My favorite is the 48″ Empire Santa I mentioned above.

Growing up, I always told my grandparents that I wanted him whenever they decided they no longer wanted him, or when the worst eventually happened.

My dad told me they originally purchased him from Sears when he was a baby, so that Santa has been part of our family for a long time.

When my grandfather passed away and my grandmother was cleaning out the house, she told me to take him home.

He stays inside now, and I love that my kids get to enjoy the same Santa that I grew up with.

Sadly, he did take a tumble inside one year and ended up with a crack in his hat, but I was able to fix him!

This is the part of collecting that price guides can’t measure.

What’s Richard’s Santa worth?

You could search completed sales.

Identify the variation.

Assess condition.

Calculate a market value.

And you’d still get the answer wrong.

Because Richard isn’t merely storing an Empire Santa.

He’s storing Christmas at his grandparents’ house.

Now his own children get to experience the same decoration.

Grandparents.

Son.

Great-grandchildren.

One plastic Santa connecting three generations.

That’s exactly why I called my book The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Sometimes keeping the glow alive means finding a rare piece.

Sometimes it means repairing a crack in Santa’s hat.

Then Richard Decided to Make Blow Molds Himself

This is where Richard’s story takes an unusual turn.

Collectors routinely say:

“Why doesn’t somebody make this?” Like that Buc-ee blow mold we ranted about here.

Richard decided to find out.

The timing mattered.

General Foam Plastics had been one of the major names in American blow-mold manufacturing, and its products continued into the 2010s; collector documentation, for example, lists several General Foam Christmas-tree designs through 2017.

When that era ended, Richard saw both a loss and an opportunity.

How did Richard’s Holiday Shop get into making new blow molds?

Richard: I’ve always had a love for the holiday industry.

While General Foam Plastics was still in business, myself and other collectors would always complain about seeing some of the same designs year after year.

So, when they closed, I eventually found a factory in China that was willing to work with me.

I had searched all over the U.S. first, but I couldn’t find anyone who could handle everything I needed, including the design work, painting, and molding.

The first design I came up with was a snowman, and he ended up being shipped to collectors all over the world.

That’s a sentence worth reading again.

A collector designed a snowman—and copies eventually went to collectors around the world.

Richard’s public product-development work also documents concepts including a 24-inch snowman, a companion Snowlady and a large Easter sign, while his more recent reflections describe just how much he learned about manufacturing, packaging, freight, storage, pricing and the difference between people liking an idea and actually purchasing it.

Suddenly the guy searching yard sales was standing on the other side of the hobby.

He wasn’t asking:

“Who made this?”

He was asking:

“How do we make this?”

Making a Blow Mold Is the Easy Part—Except It Isn’t

There’s a romantic version of product creation that goes something like this:

Have idea.

Draw snowman.

Make snowman.

Sell snowman.

Christmas!

Richard discovered the actual version.

Design.

Engineering.

Molding.

Paint.

Minimum quantities.

Packaging.

Shipping.

Freight.

Warehousing.

Pricing.

Customer expectations.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, you presumably still need to sell the snowman.

Richard has written publicly that one attempted Grand Venture snowman revival taught him an important distinction: collectors may enthusiastically support an idea in principle but have different expectations when it’s time to purchase the finished product.

That’s something most collectors never see.

We see the finished decoration sitting on a store shelf.

We don’t see the hundreds of decisions required to put it there.

Richard says he has also collaborated with designers Justin and Jerry on future concepts.

Are more Richard’s Holiday Shop designs coming?

Richard: I currently have an Easter sign planned, but due to warehouse and storage issues, I’ve had to pause the business until I can find a new place to operate out of.

While I know the preorder model can be annoying to some people, it’s the way I operate the business.

If I receive enough preorders, the mold goes into production.

If I don’t, everyone is refunded.

It allows me to create unique pieces without ordering a huge quantity and hoping they eventually sell.

That may sound less exciting than discovering a rare Santa at an estate sale.

But it’s part of the modern blow mold story.

The companies of the golden era could manufacture enormous production runs for national retailers.

A small independent creator faces a completely different economic equation.

Richard’s preorder approach effectively asks collectors to help prove demand before committing to a production run.

It’s not simply:

Do collectors want this?

It’s:

Do enough collectors want this enough to actually buy it?

Those are very different questions.

You have to give guys like Richard credit for having the courage and fortitude to really commit to making a product like a blow mold and seeing it to market. Right before COVID, I met with a 3D printer out of Costa Mesa, CA to inquire about the possibility of creating blow mold-style Christmas ornaments. While it was certainly a cool idea and something I was interested in, I couldn’t realistically pull the trigger at that time – not knowing the real manufacturing logistics related to overseas production or the real demand.

You can now buy a blow mold Christmas ornament manufactured by Mr. Christmas at Walmart for $5.97. Oh well.

Why Are Blow Molds Back?

If you’ve been collecting for any length of time, the resurgence is impossible to miss.

Vintage pieces have become desirable collectibles.

New blow molds are appearing in stores.

Long-dormant styles are being reconsidered.

Licensed characters have brought different buyers into the category. See my article about Taz.

And younger collectors are discovering decorations manufactured decades before they were born.

Richard thinks the explanation begins with one word.

Why have blow molds become popular again?

Richard: I think blow molds have become so popular again because of the nostalgia they bring.

For a lot of people, seeing one instantly reminds them of their childhood.

It might be an older collector who remembers their parents putting them out, a younger person who remembers seeing them at their grandparents’ house, or someone who remembers their family driving around looking at Christmas light displays.

I also think the fact that companies are releasing new designs every year has helped bring more people into the hobby.

We’re seeing characters and designs that collectors have wanted for years but that were never made before.

Then you have companies like Mr. Christmas that are actually listening to collectors and bringing back nostalgic pieces.

While those pieces aren’t the originals, they still capture that feeling—especially for people who can’t find or afford an original piece.

It gives another generation the chance to experience them and make their own memories.

There’s an important point there.

Nostalgia doesn’t necessarily require the original object.

Collectors understandably value originals.

But a newly manufactured decoration can become somebody else’s original.

The blow mold a parent buys today might be the one their child desperately searches for thirty years from now.

Tradition has to begin somewhere.

The Great Blow Mold Civil War: Vintage vs. New

Every collecting hobby eventually develops rules nobody actually agreed to.

What’s authentic?

What’s collectible?

What’s worth owning?

Richard has a refreshingly simple answer:

Who cares?

What advice would you give a new collector?

Richard: The biggest advice I can give is just to have fun!

Who cares if you love the new stuff, the old stuff, or both?

A lot of people get into the hobby because they see a new blow mold in a store that catches their attention, and that’s perfectly fine. Other collectors have been around for years and only collect vintage pieces.

One thing I’ve learned from being in the hobby for a long time is that opinions are always going to be strong.

Years ago, collectors complained that we kept seeing the same older designs and wanted something new.

Now that we’re getting new molds and designs every year, you’ll sometimes hear complaints about those too!

You can’t please everyone, and that’s okay.

Don’t let someone else’s opinion about what’s “collectible” determine what you enjoy. If you like it, collect it.

I couldn’t agree more.

A hobby stops being fun remarkably quickly when you’re collecting according to somebody else’s rules.

Want nothing but vintage Empire?

Wonderful.

Love new character molds?

Great.

Want a 1960s Poloron piece standing next to something you bought last Tuesday?

Plug them both in.

Christmas will survive.

Learn the History—But Don’t Turn It Into Homework

Richard does encourage new collectors to learn.

Manufacturers.

Designs.

Production history.

Differences between molds.

Those details add another layer to collecting.

That’s also one of the reasons I wrote The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Knowing why a decoration looks the way it does, who manufactured it and where it fits into the industry’s history can transform an interesting piece of plastic into something much more meaningful.

But Richard makes another good point.

If researching every manufacturer’s catalog number doesn’t interest you?

That’s okay too.

You don’t need to pass a certification exam before you’re allowed to put a glowing Santa in your yard.

One Thing Every New Collector Should Worry About

There is one area where Richard gets considerably less relaxed.

Online scammers.

What should collectors watch for?

Richard: The biggest thing I would tell people to look out for is scammers.

If you’re buying online and something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, request additional pictures, or ask other collectors or group admins for their opinion before sending money.

I also recommend using PayPal Goods and Services when purchasing from someone you don’t know so that you have purchase protection if something goes wrong.

That’s particularly important when you’re hunting rare pieces.

Excitement makes people move quickly.

Scammers know it.

A photograph of a rare blow mold plus an improbably low price plus a seller insisting you need to send money right now should produce skepticism, not adrenaline.

The mold you’ve spent ten years searching for is exactly the one that can make you ignore warning signs.

Don’t.

There will always be another blow mold.

The Collector Who Crossed to the Other Side

The more I thought about Richard’s story, the more I realized why I wanted it included alongside the collector stories surrounding The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Richard started exactly where many collectors start.

A decoration at his grandparents’ house.

He became a collector.

He learned the manufacturers.

He hunted vintage pieces.

He bought new ones.

And then he crossed an invisible line.

He became part of the process that creates the objects future collectors might someday hunt.

That’s remarkable when you think about it.

Somewhere, a Richard’s Holiday Shop snowman may be standing in a family’s Christmas display right now.

A child sees it every December.

Maybe that child loves it.

Maybe twenty-five years from now that person is scrolling through whatever replaces Facebook Marketplace, desperately trying to find another one.

And perhaps they’ll finally locate it.

They’ll plug it in.

It will glow.

And suddenly they’re eight years old again.

That’s how this works.

Richard inherited the Santa that once stood on his grandparents’ porch.

Now he’s helped create decorations that could become somebody else’s version of that Santa.

The technology changes.

The manufacturers change.

The collectors change.

But the reason these strange illuminated pieces of plastic matter?

That hasn’t changed very much at all.

Richard said it best:

Collect what makes you happy.

Because at the end of the day, that’s what the hobby should be about.

And every once in a while…

someone who loves collecting them decides to make one too.

The Story Continues in The Glow That Won’t Go Out

It’s also about something larger:

How one generation’s Christmas decorations become the next generation’s memories.

And Richard Gierlich’s journey—from his grandparents’ Empire Santa to creating new blow molds of his own—is a pretty wonderful example of why that glow isn’t going anywhere.

Go to his shop today and look around.

Every Blow Mold Deserves Another Holiday: Inside Tony DePasquale’s Mission to Save Vintage Christmas

The owner of BlowMolds.com has nearly 1,000 blow molds, hundreds of replacement parts—and an ambitious idea for what 3D printing could mean for the future of the hobby.

By Curtiss Wayne Andrews

There is a particular heartbreak known only to blow mold collectors.

You find it.

Maybe it’s buried behind a stack of artificial Christmas trees at an estate sale. Maybe it appears on Facebook Marketplace at 6:14 on a Saturday morning. Maybe you spot it sitting forlornly at the back of an antique mall booth.

It’s old.

It’s beautiful.

It’s exactly what you’ve been looking for.

And it’s missing its nose.

Or an antler.

Or an ear.

Or a candle flame.

Or one of those maddeningly specific little plastic pieces that disappeared sometime during the Reagan administration.

Twenty years ago, that might have been the end of the story.

Today, there’s a good chance Tony DePasquale can help.

The Man Behind BlowMolds.com

When I was researching The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds, I wanted the book to be about more than identifying old Empire Santas or determining whether a snowman was made by General Foam.

The bigger story was why these things are still here.

Because that’s what’s remarkable about blow molds.

They’re survivors.

They spent decades outside in December weather. They were dragged into attics, basements and garages every January. They were dropped, faded, cracked, scratched and occasionally subjected to the questionable repair techniques of somebody’s grandfather armed with duct tape and tremendous self-confidence.

Yet collectors keep bringing them back.

That led me to Tony DePasquale of New Brunswick, New Jersey, owner of BlowMolds.com by GNK Collectibles.

I featured Tony and his work in The Glow That Won’t Go Out because he’s part of a fascinating development in the hobby: modern technology is now helping preserve decorations created decades before that technology existed.

At BlowMolds.com, missing pieces can be recreated using 3D printing. The current catalog includes everything from noses, flames and antlers to lantern components, light plates, adapters, windows and other remarkably specific pieces. The company makes clear that these are aftermarket replacements rather than original-manufacturer parts.

Tony’s philosophy can be reduced to one perfect sentence:

“Every Blow Mold Deserves Another Holiday.”

After featuring his story in the book, I wanted to go back and ask him more.

Not simply about replacement parts.

I wanted to know how someone ends up with around 1,000 blow molds, what he’s learned trying to recreate pieces manufacturers stopped producing decades ago—and whether 3D printing might eventually move from repairing vintage blow molds to actually creating them.

Here’s our conversation.

A Conversation With Tony DePasquale of BlowMolds.com

When did your fascination with blow molds begin? How big is your collection, and do you have any favorites?

Tony DePasquale: My love of Christmas displays goes back to childhood. Christmas was huge in my family: we went caroling, held family parties, and my father played Santa Claus.

I even proposed to my wife, Michelle, on Santa’s lap—with my father playing Santa. Michelle and I have been married for 33 years.

My blow mold collecting really took off when I answered a Craigslist listing for a few vintage pieces. The seller mentioned he had about 30 more in his shed, and I ended up bringing those home too.

Today, I have around 1,000 blow molds.

The Empire train is one of my favorites because I’ve always loved trains.

From 30 Blow Molds to 1,000

There may not be a more authentic blow mold collecting origin story than going to someone’s house for a few decorations and leaving with the contents of the shed.

Collectors understand how this happens.

You start with a Santa.

Then Santa looks lonely.

So you need Mrs. Claus.

Then perhaps a snowman.

Obviously the snowman needs some carolers.

Then you discover Empire made a train.

Several years later, you’re explaining to a perfectly reasonable person why your property now contains three storage buildings filled with illuminated polyethylene.

Thirty becoming 1,000 somehow makes perfect sense.

How did you come to own BlowMolds.com, and what is the store’s primary mission?

Tony: I first connected with GNK Collectibles when I needed replacement fawn ears for my own collection. That led to my helping produce replacement parts, and I eventually bought the business. I now operate BlowMolds.com through GNK Collectibles.

Our mission is summed up by our motto: “Every Blow Mold Deserves Another Holiday.”

A missing nose, ear, light plate, or other small piece shouldn’t mean the end of a decoration someone has loved for decades. We make replacement parts to help people put those pieces back on display.

That mission is evident in the site’s current catalog. Replacement parts span numerous manufacturers and styles, including highly specific components such as TPI reindeer antlers, General Plastics lantern panels and Empire/General Foam sleigh runners.

And this is where Tony’s work intersects with the larger story I wanted to tell in The Glow That Won’t Go Out.

Preservation doesn’t always mean keeping something 100% original. Sometimes preservation means making it usable again.

A Christmas decoration sitting broken in an attic isn’t preserving much of anything.

Put its nose back on, install a light and place it in the yard?

Now somebody’s kid gets to remember it.

That’s how traditions survive.

Did you have 3D-printing experience before opening the store? What have been the biggest challenges?

Tony: I was already helping produce replacement parts on 3D printers before I bought the business.

The biggest challenge has been learning hundreds of parts and making sure each one fits the right blow mold. There can be differences between pieces that look nearly identical, so I pay close attention to photos, measurements, and customer feedback.

I don’t paint the parts. I print them in different colors of filament to get the color they need.

I also make vinyl stickers and made-to-order holiday signs.

This is an important detail for collectors.

A replacement isn’t necessarily as simple as saying, “I need a reindeer antler.”

Which reindeer?

Which manufacturer?

Which production variation?

How does it attach?

Tony’s current tabletop reindeer listings, for example, distinguish between Union and Poloron versions because their attachment systems differ.

That’s restoration becoming detective work.

Are parts from certain manufacturers harder to replace than others?

Tony: The difficulty often comes down to the individual part rather than the manufacturer.

Some pieces have unusual shapes, attachment points, or variations between production runs. Photos and measurements help us identify the right version, and sometimes a customer’s feedback helps us refine the fit.

That’s something collectors should remember before ordering any replacement part.

Don’t assume.

Document.

Photograph the mold.

Photograph the attachment point.

Look for markings.

Measure the opening.

The difference between a replacement that works and one that doesn’t can come down to a surprisingly small detail.

Could 3D Printing Eventually Create the Blow Mold Itself?

This was the question I really wanted to ask Tony since about 6 years ago I met with a 3D printing company in Costa Mesa, CA to try and figure out how to make blow mold Christmas ornaments (which Mr. Christmas is now manufacturing and selling at Walmart for just $5.97 a piece).

Replacement noses and antlers are one thing.

But once you can digitally model missing components, an obvious question follows:

How far can this technology go?

Have you considered 3D printing an entire blow mold? Could it work?

Tony: Yes, and I’m working on something along those lines.

I’m interested in recreating smaller vintage pieces and making miniature versions of larger ones.

I’ve spent hours researching who owns the copyrights and trademarks for different designs, including whether some trademarks were ever registered. The history can be complicated, especially with pieces dating back to the 1960s and 1970s, so I’m taking my time with it.

Let’s just say you never know what might be 3D printed next.

Now that is interesting.

We’re watching two eras of plastic manufacturing collide.

The classic blow molds collectors love were products of industrial manufacturing: molds, machinery, production lines and companies capable of manufacturing thousands of decorations.

3D printing changes the economics.

It potentially makes extremely small production runs—and highly specialized replacement components—possible in ways that wouldn’t have made economic sense during the industry’s original era.

That doesn’t mean someone can simply reproduce any vintage design they choose; intellectual-property questions matter, exactly as Tony notes.

But the broader possibility is fascinating:

Could technology developed decades after the golden age of blow molds help keep the aesthetic alive?

We’re already watching the first part of that happen.

Tony’s Advice: Inspect Your Blow Molds Before Christmas

If you’re reading this with a garage full of Christmas plastic, Tony has another recommendation:

Don’t wait until December.

What advice would you give collectors about blow mold maintenance?

Tony: Check your blow molds before the holiday season, while there’s time to find or order anything missing.

Store them carefully, keep track of loose accessories, and avoid forcing a replacement part into place if it doesn’t fit.

Keep them in a dark storage space.

Sunlight is the enemy of blow molds, more so than heat.

If you need help identifying a part, send clear photos of the entire blow mold, the area where the part attaches, and any manufacturer markings.

Measurements of the opening or attachment point are especially helpful.

That’s particularly good advice heading into fall.

Replacement parts aren’t necessarily warehouse items sitting on a shelf waiting to ship. BlowMolds.com says its parts are printed to order, with current typical lead times around 7–10 days and potentially longer waits during busy periods.

So September and October are much better times to discover Rudolph is missing an antler than December 18.

Tony’s site also publishes specific handling recommendations for 3D-printed parts, including guidance about bulbs, adhesives, drilling, heat and storage.

Before You Put Up Your Display This Year

Tony’s advice inspired a checklist I’d recommend to any collector:

Inventory your blow molds. Make sure everything you expect to have is actually there.
Check removable parts. Look for noses, antlers, flames, lantern tops, signs and light plates.
Inspect attachment points. Don’t force a replacement into brittle vintage plastic.
Photograph unidentified damage. Get wide shots, close-ups and manufacturer markings.
Take measurements. Especially openings, slots and attachment points.
Test lighting before decorating day. Discovering a problem in the garage beats discovering it on a ladder.
Limit unnecessary sunlight during storage. Tony specifically identifies sunlight as a major enemy.
Order replacements early. Holiday repair season is not the time to discover you need an obscure 40-year-old plastic nose.

And when in doubt?

Ask someone who has approximately 999 more blow molds than a normal person.

This Is Why the Glow Won’t Go Out

When I chose the title The Glow That Won’t Go Out, I wasn’t simply talking about a light bulb inside a piece of molded plastic.

I was talking about persistence.

Companies disappeared.

Factories closed.

Molds were destroyed, sold or forgotten.

Christmas decorating changed.

Inflatables arrived.

LEDs arrived.

Tastes changed.

And still, every November and December, thousands of these old plastic Santas, snowmen, candles, angels, reindeer and Nativity figures emerge from garages and basements and light up again.

Why?

Because people keep caring about them.

Collectors rescue them.

Families inherit them.

Restorers repair them.

And people like Tony DePasquale figure out how to manufacture the tiny missing piece that allows something made half a century ago to survive another Christmas.

Tony’s motto gets the entire philosophy exactly right:

Every blow mold deserves another holiday.

I’d add only one thing.

Every time somebody repairs one and puts it back outside, they’re not merely saving an old decoration.

They’re preserving somebody’s Christmas memory.

And that’s ultimately what The Glow That Won’t Go Out is about.

Meet More of the People Keeping the Glow Alive

Tony DePasquale and the work of BlowMolds.com are featured in The Glow That Won’t Go Out: The Complete Collector’s Guide to Vintage Holiday Blow Molds by Curtiss Wayne Andrews.

The book explores the history, manufacturers, identification, collecting, restoration and enduring appeal of the glowing plastic decorations that became part of the American Christmas landscape—and the collectors helping ensure they don’t disappear.

For replacement parts or help identifying a missing component, visit BlowMolds.com.