Byers’ Choice Carolers: A Collector’s Introduction

Byers’ Choice Carolers are the figures with their mouths open. Once you notice it you cannot stop: a family in Victorian coats on a mantel, every one of them mid-note, the dog included. People have been collecting them for close to fifty years, usually one or two at a time, usually with a story attached to each. This is the introduction we give customers who have inherited a few, been given one, or simply stopped in front of our display and asked what they are.

Where Byers’ Choice Carolers Come From

The Carolers began at a kitchen table in Pennsylvania. Joyce Byers, a fashion designer and artist, came home from a trip to London taken with the winter scenes in the shop windows and started making her own singing figures from what she had in the house: wire, newspaper, fabric and clay. They decorated her home, visitors asked where they came from, and by the early 1970s she was selling a few through a local women’s exchange. Demand outran the family, art students were hired for the summers, and Byers’ Choice Ltd. was formally founded in 1978. It is still family owned, still in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, and still run by Joyce and her sons, which is rarer than it should be in the collectibles world.

How Each Caroler Is Made

Every Caroler and Kindle is made in the company’s own facility in Pennsylvania, a fact the Byers family prints on every piece we sell. The process is the reason no two look quite alike.

A Sculpted Head

Joyce sculpts an original head for each new design, and a mold is taken from it. Each head is cast in clay from that mold, then finished by hand: nostrils and lips are added, the face is painted, and the eyes, brows and coloring go on one at a time. Look at two of the same figure side by side and the expressions differ, which collectors consider the whole charm.

A Wire and Paper Body

The body is tissue paper wrapped over a skeleton of bent wire. That is why the figures are light, why they can lean and gesture, and why they should never live near a candle or a radiator.

Dressed by Hand

Dressers cut fabric to Joyce’s patterns and clothe each figure before the head and hair are attached. The clothes are the first thing you notice and the thing that dates a piece: coats, bonnets, scarves and the props in their hands change with every line.

Carolers, Kindles and Accessories

The line comes in a few scales, and knowing them helps a display make sense. Adult Carolers stand about thirteen inches tall and children about ten; the Drummer Boy on our shelf is twelve. Kindles are the small companions, roughly three to six inches: singing dogs, a fireplace with stockings hung on the mantel, the bits of scenery that turn a row of figures into a street. Everything is sold individually, even the families, so you can build a household in whatever order suits you.

The Families and the Characters

Byers’ Choice releases its Carolers in collections, and the ones on our shelves this season show the range. The Skiing and Sledding Family is bundled up for the hill. The Nutcracker Family carries home the nutcrackers they have just bought at the Christmas market, which pairs nicely with a few real ones from our nutcracker shelves. The Stocking Family is in Christmas-morning clothes with stockings and, sensibly, a mug of coffee for each parent. The Campbell Family wears sheep’s wool, fleece and flannel. The Decorating Family and the Shopping Family do what their names say. Among the single figures, the Chimney Sweep in his work clothes with ladder and broom and the Fire Fighter with axe and bucket suit a Victorian street, while Mr. and Mrs. Claus appear in red velvet, in rocking chairs reading The Night Before Christmas, and in holiday sweaters hanging the garland.

How to Start a Collection

Begin With One Figure

A single Caroler on a mantel is a complete display. Choose the one whose face you like, since the faces vary, and whose story fits your house: the chimney sweep for luck, a child for a new grandchild, a Claus for the person who is Christmas in your family.

Build a Household

Most collections grow into a family, then a street. Add the adult partner, then children, then a Kindle or two. Because the pieces are sold individually and sized to each other, a family assembled over five Decembers looks as finished as one bought in an afternoon.

Make It an Annual Habit

One Caroler a year is the way many of our customers collect. It keeps the display growing, gives each piece its own memory, and lets a family’s collection reflect the years: the ski family the winter you learned, the dog the year the dog arrived.

What Collectors Look For

The question we hear most is which Byers’ Choice Carolers are the most valuable, and the honest answer is that it depends on the piece in front of you. Collectors prize the early figures, designs that have been retired, limited runs and special collections, and above all condition: a clean face, intact clothing, props still in hand. We do not quote values here, because they move with the market and because two figures of the same design can be worth very different amounts. If you have inherited a few, bring them in and we will tell you what we can.

Displaying Byers’ Choice Carolers

Group them as if they are singing to each other, which means turning the figures slightly inward rather than lining them up facing the room. Odd numbers look natural. Vary heights with a book or a riser so a child is not lost behind a parent, and give the Kindles a job: a dog at someone’s feet, the fireplace at the end of the row. Mantels, pianos, sideboards and entry tables are the classic homes. Keep them out of direct sun, which fades fabric, and away from candles and heat vents, which are no friends to paper and wire. For the wider room, our collectibles and traditions shelves hold the nutcrackers, advent calendars and villages that Carolers share a house with happily.

Storing Them Between Seasons

Carolers travel badly in a shoebox. Byers’ Choice makes a Caroler Condo, a storage box with a room for each of twelve figures, and it is the single best thing you can buy a collection after the figures themselves. Stand each piece upright, keep the props with their owners, and store the box somewhere dry and temperate rather than a hot attic or a damp basement. Our guide to storing Christmas decorations covers the rest of the house.

The Advent Calendars

Byers’ Choice also makes wooden advent calendars, tall houses and trees and sleighs with twenty-four numbered doors, which many Caroler families end up owning. We covered them, and the daily argument over whose turn it is, in our advent calendar guide.

The Short Version

Byers’ Choice Carolers are hand-made singing figures from a family company in Pennsylvania, built on wire and paper with sculpted clay faces, dressed by hand, and sold one at a time since 1978. Start with a face you like, build a household over the years, display them singing to each other, store them in the condo, and let the collection keep time with your family. Our Byers’ Choice shelves have the families and characters named above, in the store and online.