Wizards Christmas Ornaments

A few years ago, in my quest to Wizards-ify every aspect of my life (a quest that continues today), I decided I'd try to pick up a few Wizards Christmas ornaments to hang on the family tree around the holidays. I thought this would be a pretty simple task. I'd just sign on to the NBA Store website and buy some. Turns out I was wrong. Unbeknownst to me when I thought of this idea was that they just don't make Wizards Christmas tree ornaments. Presumably because nobody wants to buy them.

Don't believe me? Sign on to the NBA Store website and type the word "ornament". When I did it earlier this month, it yielded 203 results. Want to festoon your tree with 16 different San Antonio Spurs ornaments? You can do that by going on a deluxe online shopping spree. How about satisfying your lifelong dream to own a Dwyane Wade elf ornament or a Los Angeles Lakers s'mores ornament or a Golden State Warriors soda cooler ornament? Yep they got all those on the NBA Store site too. Brookyn Nets star ornament? Philadelphia 76ers LED light up ball ornament? Boston Celtics stadium chair ornament? Absolutely, for sure and yes! But a single Washington Wizards ornament? No. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

But where there's a will, there's a way. And thank God for eBay. One man's trash is another man's treasure. And oh boy did I get some treasure.

The simple glass ball ornaments were pretty easy to find. I picked up a garish original Wizards bronze blue and black vintage motif ball (God that logo looks terrible now) and the rebranded version with the oh-so-sophisticated red, white and blue color scheme on the slightly rotated wizard that fools nobody into thinking it was an actual rebrand. I got both of those for less than $15 combined including shipping. You can go ahead and say that's a total waste of less than $15. I don't care. I like these things.

But my ornament quest required some deeper mining to find some real gold and that came from a company called The Memory Company, which has produced some pretty funky NBA ornaments over the last few years. I can't imagine there's ever been much of a market for these sorts of things in general but for sure I appreciate it because I can pick up some classic swag for very little. 

Last year I found a Santa Claus with that awful old blue color robe (instead of red...clever, right?).  I featured that ornament on my Christmas post last year, which I swear is not intended to be an actual thing but I've admittedly blogged Christmas week the last two Decembers before this year. At Santa's feet is an NBA basketball and he's holding a wreath with the old Wizards logo at the center behind some kind of plastic cover which has faded to yellow in a very non family heirloom way. 

This year I hit the daily double with The Memory Company and found a nutcracker ornament with the almost current Wizards logo on his hat. He's holding some kind of instrument ready to fire up the crowd I guess. Too bad we don't play this Christmas Day. This is about as non-Wizards an ornament as you can find. It actually looks like a traditional nutcracker ornament. You really have to squint to identify the branding.

I haven't asked my mom how she feels about this quartet of ornaments on her tree that is covered with decorations that in many ways mark our family's history. Maybe next year she'll make me move them to the back side of the tree like the metallic blue steamboat ornament that my grandma got us about 45 years ago.

Enjoy the NBA action this Christmas, Wizards fans. There's no pressure this year because we ain't playing. And I dare anyone to top my collection of Wizards ornaments. Happy holidays and go Wizards!!!