Christmas in July

For those lucky enough to go, Breyerfest and/or Equilocity constitute Christmas in July.  The rest of us have to wait for the traditional December celebration.

Christmas-themed model horses, however, can be enjoyed all year round.

Both Breyer and Stone regularly release a bonanza of Christmas horses to celebrate the season, and both Hartland Plastics and Hagen-Renaker have each produced much sought-after Nativity sets which include, of course, a stable donkey.  Sheryl Leisure's Hartland L.L.C. also issued a number of Christmas-themed Tinymites for a couple of years.

Most people don't routinely include horses in their Christmas decorating.  The Nativity donkey, yes, that's a mainstay of many Christmas decorations.  But horses?  An awkward fit, at best.

Unless, of course, you're a model horse collector.

Christmas decoration models run the gamut from unrealistic colours, compositions, and conformation, to ultra-realistic horses decorated with plausible ribbons, bows, blankets, and halters in holiday themes and colours.

My own collection includes only Breyer Christmas decorations so far.  At one time I had a Stone Christmas horse -- the trotting drafter -- but I sold him years ago.

As far as the Breyers go, I have a pretty good representation of Christmas models, although I only have one of the Traditional-sized Christmas horses:  the Misty with the sleigh.

However, to go with it I have four of the Beautiful Breed porcelain ornaments (the Welsh Pony, the Friesian, the Quarter Horse, and the Clydesdale) and four Stablemate ornaments (both versions of Father Christmas on the Andalusian -- bay and grey, Santa on the Jumping Horse, and Santa on the Cow Pony).

My first Breyer Christmas purchases, though, were the Stablemates hitched to the holiday carts -- the Holiday Sleigh and the musical Holiday Wagon.

Holiday Sleigh overflowing with goodies

Even though they're hitched to their carts with just a suggestion of a harness, I find the Stablemate horse-drawn vehicles completely irresistible.  And because my first two carts were drawn by Paso Finos, I now use Paso Finos to draw all the other carts I've acquired along the way.

Holiday Sleigh Paso Fino

When it comes to actually doing Christmas decorating, I've used the Misty, the Stablemate ornaments, and the Stablemate carts in my decoration.  I've never used the Beautiful Breeds horses, however.  Even when I use an artificial tree, I find that they're just too heavy to hang securely on a limb and I've learned to my loss that these porcelain pretties can't survive even a gentle fall.  My Clydesdale took a tumble and lost both ears as he insisted on landing head-first on the linoleum.  I'm no sculptor, so my patch-up job doesn't exactly pass muster, although I prefer it to his formerly naked pate.

Every Christmas, it seems, Breyer comes out with something else to tempt me.  Over the years I've resisted the glass ball ornaments, the stirrup ornaments, the carousel horses, the angel horses, and the snow globes.

But my resistance is weakening.  I find myself wishing now that I had bought a couple of angel fillies, or committed myself to the carousel series.  But most of all, I find myself inexplicably yearning for a snow globe.  Not a collection of them:  just one really nice one to sit on the table as a conversation piece all holiday -- perhaps even all year -- long.

This year's snow globe features two horses jumping over a stone wall fence, with Santa in a sleigh trotting around the base.  Maybe this could be the year for me -- all I know is that this particular snow globe is hitting me in all the right places.  Maybe, at last, it's time for me to shake things up this Christmas.

Such are my sugarplum dreams in the heat of the summer sun.