12/22/05 A partridge in a pear tree?

The most famous, and most repeated, line in the classic Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is "&and a partridge in a pear tree". So why wouldn't the main promoter of U.S.A. Pears, Pear Bureau Northwest, take advantage of this built in marketing opportunity? For the last seventeen years, the resulting promotion has been the partridge in a pear tree Christmas tree ornament. MOFFITT: We certainly have people come in every year looking for it. We have people coming in and asking us about it through letters or e-mails before we even get the information out to the collectors. So we have a definite base of collectors. Roughly estimated at 3,000 orders a year and growing according to Pear Bureau Northwest's Kevin Moffitt. He says the neat aspect of this promotion is it goes back into support of the pear industry. MOFFITT: Basically we offer this to consumers where they send us a receipt for pears & a purchase of pears from a supermarket, about three and a half pounds of pears. And then they send us the cost of this ornament actually, about $4.50. And that covers postage and handling and the ornament costs. And then we send them the ornament. And while it may be too late to get the ornament as a gift for 2005, there is always time to get a head start for 2006. Moffitt says go to www.usapears.org, then click under "offers" for more information.