I am always trying new ideas to capture designs that hold memories for our collectors. We know football is a sport with a lot of appeal based on our bestseller “Binge Watching” featuring Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

“Better Together” was originally going to follow up on that piece’s success and show their team spirit. Mr. and Mrs. C. were supposed to be in their traditional red and white clothing, posed to be cheering on their team. I wanted the pennant to say, “GO TEAM!”

But when I created the concept drawing, it didn’t seem to have strong enough appeal, mostly because Santa and Mrs. C. couldn’t represent the popular team colors.

“Once I changed the flags to say Merry Christmas, I felt like it would have strong appeal.”

I really liked the pose and the pennant flags, so I decided to try a traditional Christmas theme. I wanted Mrs. C. to be fun, so I chose a patchwork of fabrics for her clothing.

Then I found ribbon trims for Santa’s suit to coordinate with Mrs. C. and finally, I asked one of our other artists to help create the pennant flags and letters to coordinate with all the colors, trims, and fabrics.

Per the concept art, you can see I had other flags as a back-up, but I chose the pennant flags for final.

— Ann Dezendorf