The matching PlayStation ornament is a tribute to the great, but fragile console

You probably know signature PlayStation boot sound. Did you know it’s technically a multi-genre song? There is a synthy scene where “Sony Computer Entertainment” appears on the screen with a white background. You just get to the next screen with echo-y chimes and a colorful PlayStation logo if your console recognizes the disc. Why? badly I wanted my broken connector to get to the second screen.

My disc spindle for the console split early in my ownership. As an eight-year-old, fixing a spinning top was the most dangerous job of my life. The internet wasn’t the place to do it yet, so I developed the thing, and it worked. But the spindle is supposed to be adjustable so that the disc can pop out and stop (it had a rubber ring with little ball bearings in it, too – those methods were blowing my mind at the time). So, pieces come up regularly, and I just stick and play.

Waiting for the second boot chime to activate on my console was painful. Sometimes it takes about 10 seconds, or not at all. Funnily enough, it was my playtime that was precious, and it made Hallmark’s new Keepsake ornament a bigger hit than I expected.

The company running the console replicas is great, and the previous one was Xbox 360 image last year. It’s nice to see one made for a console with a larger legacy (one that hasn’t been marred by hardware issues). PlayStation changed my relationship with games, and my relationship with technology.

The decal celebrates the pre-DualShock version of the console. There are a lot of niceties, like the curved edges, power plug, and A/V port that Sony had with the PlayStation 3. The controller attaches to the disc cover of the console, and its flexible cable attaches to its side. When you press the power button, the green LED lights up, and the PlayStation console plays in full – both ways. There are a few flaws I noticed on my unit out of the box, and the shape of the power button is a little crooked, but nothing that’s easy to notice from a short distance away.

$28.99 for those decorations may seem steep, or totally acceptable, depending on how much you want to spend with the game. I’ve always been an actor who likes what I like without being loud. The ornament, like other Hallmark Keepsake varieties, is beautiful and understated. Only the PlayStation can be frozen in the tree when it comes to the holidays. It’s also a fun memory that represents a great console that I played a little bit that I can show off whenever and wherever I want.