SIOUX CITY | When he was a child, Steve Lundberg would accompany his grandmother, Grace, to the Hallmark store after grocery shopping.
Whenever she sent a greeting card, she always sent Hallmark.
Lundberg's grandmother, who told him, "When you care enough to send the very best, you send Hallmark," naturally started his Hallmark ornament collection. Each Christmas, she'd place a Hallmark ornament in his stocking. He carries on the tradition, buying Hallmark ornaments for his nieces and nephews.
"Of course, I didn't understand that it was their logo until many years later," Lundberg said with a chuckle as he sat in his living room.
Keepsake ornaments of the U.S.S. Voyager and U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek dangled from greenery draped above a doorway amid lights and sequin-encrusted planets.
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Nearby, dozens upon dozens of other Hallmark ornaments were tucked away in plastic tubs. In total, Lundberg guesses he has more than 100.
"I obviously have the spaceship Hallmarks, and that's because I'm a huge science fiction fan. I have been ever since I was 12 years old," he said.
"One of the things I love about the Hallmark ornaments is that they're so personal. I picked them out because they mean something to me whether they're animals or Sarah, Plain and Tall."
Lundberg paused for a few moments when asked which ornament is his favorite.
"They all just mean so much to me," he said, before rummaging through the boxes and finding "Party Line," two raccoons wearing red scarves and green mittens playing telephone with Campbell's Soup cans.
The ornament conjured up a memory for Lundberg, who used to live on a farm with his husband, Randy Peters. They raised a couple orphaned raccoons, but as they grew, one of the raccoons became aggressive. Eventually, they released the raccoons from their large cage into the wild.
"Randy gave me that that Christmas of the two raccoons," he said. "Everyone of them has a story behind them. Some of these have magical qualities."
A teddy bear sitting at a lighted mirror applying makeup is another Hallmark ornament Lundberg, an actor, singer, pianist and Morningside College voice faculty member, received as a gift.
"When you let people know that you love Hallmark ornaments, it's amazing the gifts that they give you," he said. "They see something that reminds them of me and they'll pick it up and send it for Christmas."
June Sneller, of Sioux City, received her first Sioux City-themed ornament in 1986 during a Christmas ornament exchange among friends. The ornament and 18 others in her collection decorate her 7-foot-tall tree.
For 19 years, the Sioux City Cosmopolitan Club, "The Club that Fights Diabetes," produced an annual ornament. The inaugural ornament featured an illustration of the Grandview Park Bandshell in white on a bright blue background.
"I liked it so much, so the next year I found out the head of (the Cosmopolitan Club) in Morningside was Randy Kramer, so I kept getting them from him," Sneller said. "They started because someone said, 'We don't have anything representing Sioux City.'"
Other landmarks featured over the years include City Hall, Queen of Peace -- a 30-foot tall stainless steel statue at Trinity Heights -- the Sioux City Municipal Auditorium, Central High School and the Bruguier Monument. Sayings, such as "Glad tidings" and "Happy Holidays," are written on the back of the ornaments. The Cosmopolitan Club quit creating ornaments in 2004 after sales dropped off, according to Sneller.
"When you live here, you don't realize what things aren't here anymore, like the Arches," she said of the Gateway Arches, which graced the Cosmopolitan Club's 1996 ornament. The 32-year-old concrete arches, in the 600 block of Gordon Drive, were demolished in July 2015 to make way for the widening of nearby Interstate 29.
Sneller's favorite ornament in her collection pays homage to the Sioux City Explorers baseball team and their home ballpark, Lewis and Clark Park. Sneller doesn't miss a game. She traveled with her late husband to away games in Fargo, North Dakota, and Winnipeg, Canada, among other places.
Sneller said she accidentally broke two ornaments in her collection over the years, but luckily she was able to replace them and maintain a full set. She said she wishes another community club or organization would come up with a similar keepsake.
"I think the biggest part for me is the iconicness of it," she said. "For me, it was started as a gift and turned out to be a prized collection. I just love it!"
