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CNN Saturday Morning News
Interview With Alan Silverstone
Aired November 24, 2001 - 08:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: The holidays certainly have a different meaning this year. Peace has taken on a renewed sense of importance and we are beginning to decorate and celebrate for the holidays. But none of us is forgetting about what happened September 11.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: And we're seeing the passion for patriotism from all the flags on our homes, on the cars, to all the ornaments that are out this season.
And Alan Silverstone is the CEO of the incredible Christmas store and holiday collection. He joins us from New York to sort of talk about this trend and all the ornaments that are out there.
Hi, Alan.
ALAN SILVERSTONE, CEO, HOLIDAY COLLECTION: Good morning.
PHILLIPS: So does it surprise you, this, just this thirst for wanting to decorate with ornaments that remind us of September 11? Do you see it as a positive?
SILVERSTONE: Well, I see a very positive attitude in the country now. People are tired of looking at news that, you know, where they have to consider economic and political consequences and now they want to get back to home and family. And we're seeing a trend now for people to celebrate the holidays at home and to decorate their homes with traditional ornaments and to add patriotic themes to the ornaments.
CALLAWAY: I was going to ask you, New York has been so deeply wounded.
SILVERSTONE: Yes.
CALLAWAY: But what are you seeing people buy there in the city of New York, a lot of red, white and blue ornaments?
SILVERSTONE: A lot of red, white and blue. I have some ornaments to show you if you'd like to see them.
CALLAWAY: All right, let's take a look at them.
SILVERSTONE: This is an ornament that we had commissioned by New York artist Nancy George Michelsen (ph), which is a patriotic ornament of an American flag hand painted on a ball. And this is available only at the Incredible Christmas Store. It's exclusive to us. It's beautiful.
PHILLIPS: That is beautiful. You can go on, as you continue to show these to us, you can go online also and order these, right, Alan?
SILVERSTONE: Yes. You can order from our Web site, which is incrediblechristmas.com.
CALLAWAY: I think our favorite, Kyra and I, our favorite is the Santa Claus fireman.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
CALLAWAY: Can you show us that?
SILVERSTONE: Yes, sure. And in order to honor our heroes, this is our Santa Claus fireman. We also have available the Santa Claus policeman.
CALLAWAY: Did this come out after September 11?
SILVERSTONE: No, actually almost all of these things on the table where here before September 11. It's just that there's a renewed interest in patriotism and traditional themes. So that's why they're popular now.
PHILLIPS: And, of course, the Rockefeller snow globe. Show us that one.
SILVERSTONE: Yes.
PHILLIPS: The kids always love the snow globes.
SILVERSTONE: This is one of our unique pieces. It's the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, which is the Christmas tree in the center of the Christmas universe, the most famous tree in the world. And the skaters and the Prometheus are on the front of the snow globe. It plays "New York, New York." And we are actually located, the store is located right below this famous tree in Rockefeller Center.
CALLAWAY: That's a convenient place to be when you're selling Christmas ornaments.
SILVERSTONE: Exactly.
CALLAWAY: Now, tell us, we understand you also have a competition that has to do with victims from the World Trade Center.
PHILLIPS: The ornaments, right? The New York City's public schools?
SILVERSTONE: The New York City, we had actually conceived of a contest last summer with the New York City public school systems to help the art departments foster art education. And it was to design an ornament that best connotes the spirit of New York during the holiday season. And after September 11, this took on a new meaning and we saw some really inspiring entries from the students. I'm going to show you a couple of them.
CALLAWAY: Good.
PHILLIPS: Yes, show them to us.
SILVERSTONE: Here's one showing the, I don't know if you can see the details.
PHILLIPS: We can see it.
CALLAWAY: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Sure. Go ahead and tell us about it. We'll soon learn.
SILVERSTONE: This has the New York apple with a Band-Aid on it and the dove is carrying the fire extinguisher.
PHILLIPS: Is this one of the winners?
SILVERSTONE: It's a peace dove. No, we don't have winners yet. These are all the entries that are on display in the concourse of Rockefeller Center for the next few weeks. The winners will be announced in December.
CALLAWAY: Oh, wow, that's incredible.
SILVERSTONE: I'll show you one more. Here's another one done with the twin towers and the firemen and the policemen and the American flag.
PHILLIPS: Wow. What will the winner receive?
SILVERSTONE: The winning school will receive art supplies, much needed art supplies from us. And we have two different divisions. There's the high school division and the middle school division. So the schools will get these art supplies that they need badly. New York is not one that funds art programs very well and we would like to help with that program.
PHILLIPS: Well, you're selling ornaments to raise money, too, for the September 11 fund, right?
SILVERSTONE: Yes. In fact, the ornament that I showed you before with a patriotic theme, the flag, was done by Nancy to give the proceeds to the American Red Cross. We also have several other ornaments in the store, one of which I don't have here to show you but you can see online. It shows Santa Claus flying over the city and the twin towers are on that ornament. And we actually made that for the twin towers gift shop and it was ready to ship just before September 11. And we decided rather than not to use them, we would take all the proceeds from that and give it to the families of the victims.
CALLAWAY: And you can order those online with incrediblechristmas.com.
SILVERSTONE: Yes.
CALLAWAY: I think Kyra and I are going to be on there quickly ordering those.
PHILLIPS: Maybe during the commercial break we can get a few.
SILVERSTONE: You can also call. We have a toll-free number people can call. I don't know if that's going to be put on the screen. But it's 888-884-XMAS. It's very easy to remember.
CALLAWAY: And once again, this goes to the Red Cross disaster relief.
SILVERSTONE: The American Red Cross disaster relief, yes.
CALLAWAY: The relief fund.
Well, it's nice to hear that people are celebrating and decorating this holiday season, especially in New York, where you have been through so much.
SILVERSTONE: Yes, thanks. In fact, I wanted to also show you one more thing. In the area of ornaments, we have done a patriotic tree. You can see how you can take your normal tree and add some red, white and blue ribbon, some blue balls instead of green with the red and white...
CALLAWAY: Uncle Sam.
SILVERSTONE: ... and a little Uncle Sam. And now you have a patriotic theme. In fact, one of, you see right behind Uncle Sam is a red Faberge egg ornament. I have that here in front of me. I'll show the actual ornament.
PHILLIPS: Did you say that was a nutcracker?
SILVERSTONE: That's an Uncle Sam nutcracker, yes.
PHILLIPS: All right. Very good. I can get rid of the, all the old ones I have from -- remember the old nutcrackers?
CALLAWAY: Yes. Now you can have a patriotic one.
PHILLIPS: The soldiers? Yes, there you go.
SILVERSTONE: Also, to add to your patriotic tree we have this wonderful Statue of Liberty that is mouth blown glass from Italy. This is also another beautiful, unique ornament for collectors.
CALLAWAY: I honestly had no idea there were so many patriotic ornaments out there.
SILVERSTONE: Yes.
CALLAWAY: It makes you want to go out and look at them.
PHILLIPS: Alan Silverstone, thank you so much.
SILVERSTONE: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: All right.
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