Buying Hello Kitty Christmas ornaments at The Christmas Shop
This season Hello Kitty gets her own corner at The Christmas Shop. What you find here are official Christmas ornaments in glass and plastic, produced under licence from Sanrio. The glass pieces are the more classic Christmas baubles, often mouth blown, with the Hello Kitty illustration carefully painted on. The plastic ornaments are more figurative: Hello Kitty as a three-dimensional figure, sometimes with a Christmas hat, sometimes with a gift in her hands. The range grows each season. Looking for something specific? Get in touch and we will see what we can find.
Who is Hello Kitty?
Hello Kitty is the lead character of the Japanese gift company Sanrio, designed in 1974 by illustrator Yuko Shimizu. Her full name is Kitty White, and according to her official backstory she lives in a London suburb with her parents and her twin sister Mimmy. She is five apples tall, three apples in weight, and she has no mouth. The missing mouth was a deliberate choice by Sanrio: without one, anyone can project their own emotion onto her face, and she can speak in every language at once. More than fifty years on, she remains one of the most licensed characters in the world.
Glass or plastic: the difference
The choice between a glass and a plastic Hello Kitty ornament is mostly a choice between classic and figurative. A glass Hello Kitty bauble sits in the tradition of the mouth-blown Christmas ball: round or oval, with the illustration carefully painted on the surface. It looks at home among your other Christmas baubles and is solid enough to last for years. A plastic version is figurative: a three-dimensional Hello Kitty figure with more detail in the bow and the body, lighter to hang, and crucially unbreakable. Helpful if there are small children or a curious cat in the house.
Hello Kitty in your Christmas tree
Hello Kitty works as a colourful surprise among more traditional decorations. A handful of ornaments scattered through a tree of red and gold baubles brings just the right playful contrast. If you want to go further, build out a full pastel or kawaii corner: Hello Kitty in pink, light blue or mint green, paired with other figurative Christmas ornaments. As a gift she reaches a wide audience: from the young niece or nephew just discovering her, to the colleague in their forties who carried her on a pencil case through the 1980s.
