I haven’t done as many reviews on Pandora’s Winter collection as I’d like and of course that is due to the craziness of the holiday’s! I feel like every year I have less and less time to prepare for Christmas, anyhow, today’s post will be reviewing the Twinkling Christmas Tree and the Christmas Puppy.

First Impression:

At first glance I thought, “Do we really need ANOTHER Christmas Tree?” By now Pandora had already retired the original two tone Christmas Tree (still my favorite) and had the Tree of Lights on the chopping block. I wasn’t very impressed with this charm but then I had a change of opinion. Likewise with the Christmas Puppy, I found it a bit cartoony and pointless, but again I had a change of heart.

Review:

As I started playing with the Christmas tree charm I noticed an interesting thing about it, it stands straight up.

I thought that was pretty cool! All the other Pandora Christmas tree charms never stood straight up, they were always bottom heavy like their heart charms and always turned upside down. This wasn’t a huge deal since the charm is on your wrist and no on will notice which way is up, however I wonder how this charm would wear on a necklace chain? Anyone care to find out?

This charm is of course sterling silver and covered in pave set cubic zirconias (which I guess is here to stay?). I love the little star detailing at the very top, wish it was gold like it’s original counterpart but I do like how it has a cubic zirconia at the heart of the star. I also wish some of the cubic zirconias would be different colors, this could be interpreted as twinkling lights or even ornaments. The only thing I don’t like too much is that it has little miniature Christmas tree cutouts all around the charm. To me it seems a bit redundant, do we need Christmas trees on top of a Christmas tree?

This would be a lovely addition to any Christmas bracelet, it retails for $70 which is a pit pricey in my opinion but falls into the regular price point of other pave set charms.

Now for the Christmas Puppy:

As I stated before at first glance I thought this charm was a bit cartoony and over the top, I kind of still think it is but it’s grown on me because of a special Christmas memory from my childhood. I know a lot of parents give puppies as part of their Christmas gifts to their children and my family was no exception, we were blessed with a beautiful German Shepard puppy when we were kids, it is a very treasured memory especially since she’s passed now and it took about seven years before I was ready to adopt another puppy.

Let’s move on before I depress all of you and myself! Although this charm could very well represent the same memories for you, I did find some odd things with the charm itself:

This is the side view of the bead, I don’t know about you but to me the puppy looks a bit like a hunch back! Here is another shot:

It’s not a huge deal, it’s not something that would be noticed especially if the bead is on a bracelet, but being the weird OCD person that I am it bothers me for some reason!! Is it just me, does it bother any of you? Here are other live shots:

This charm is sterling silver with enamel and retails for $45 which is not too bad. I like enamel charms because I do have to give Pandora credit, they are hard wearing and long lasting, I’ve never had a problem with any of my enamel charms.

In Conclusion:

The Twinkling Christmas tree is a good bead overall if you want to add a Christmas tree charm to your bracelet and have missed out on previous versions of this charm from Pandora. As for the other charm, I think I may have been too hard on the Christmas Puppy, but it is just to give you readers my viewpoint on these charms. Some of you guys may not have a concept store nearby and may order most of your charms online so you may not know exactly what you are getting. I hope this review has proved helpful to you and if not at least entertaining. Are any of these on your Christmas wish list?

 

All images with my watermark belong to me, all other images belong to their respective owners such as Pandora.