2 days ago | Advertorial | Jodie Marchant

“After 47 Christmases, my eyes are telling me to stop.” Why a 74-year-old woodcarver from the Adelaide Hills is selling his last wooden reindeer online – for the first and the last time

For almost half a century, Trevor Liebelt has carved little sitting reindeer in a tin shed in Hahndorf – and sold them only at the town’s Christmas market. Never in a shop, never online. Now his eyesight is failing, the shed closes on 15 December, and his granddaughter has put his last reindeer online. Just this once.

Trevor Liebelt (74) in his shed in Hahndorf. These are the last reindeer he will ever carve.

Hahndorf, November. The paddocks around town are turning gold, the cicadas have started up in the gum trees, and the tin shed behind the Liebelt house smells of fresh wood shavings, linseed oil and strong coffee. It is 31 degrees outside. Inside, on the long workbench, stand two dozen reindeer in a row – some still rough from the knife, some already smooth, a few waiting for the last and finest step: the face. Trevor Liebelt sits down on the same stool he has used every November since 1979. This year is different. This is the last one.

“I’m 74,” he says, and taps the frame of his glasses. “The eye specialist in Adelaide calls it macular degeneration. The middle of everything I look at has gone soft and blurry. I can still rough out a body by feel. But the face – the eyes, the little nose, that look – you have to see exactly where the knife goes. That’s the part my eyes won’t do any more.” He is quiet for a moment. “And the world’s changed. Everything comes out of a factory now. People have forgotten what a thing feels like when somebody actually made it.”

47 Christmases, more than 9,600 reindeer – and not a single one sold online

It started with a baby and an offcut. In the spring of 1979, Trevor was a cabinetmaker who built kitchens for half the Adelaide Hills. His daughter Melissa was born that October. “I wanted to make her something for her first Christmas,” he says. One evening he took an offcut from a kitchen job and carved a little reindeer sitting on its haunches, legs stretched out in front, with a long, kind face – the kind his German grandmother used to set out every December. Visitors saw it on the mantelpiece and asked if he could make one for them.

That December he took twelve to the Christmas market on the main street. They were gone by lunchtime. Every year since, Trevor has stood at the same stall with his reindeer – and every year they sold out before the market packed up. “People asked me a hundred times about a website,” he laughs. “I always said: if you want one, come to Hahndorf.” More than 9,600 reindeer have left his shed that way. Not one of them was ever sold online.

The face is always last – and the hardest part. After 47 years, Trevor still holds his breath for the eyes.

What makes Trevor’s reindeer so special

On the sideboard on a warm December afternoon, every carving mark catches the light.

At first it is the face. A long, gentle nose, two small dark eyes and that slightly curious look, as if the little reindeer has just heard sleigh bells somewhere outside. He sits the way a young reindeer really rests in the snow – back straight, front legs stretched out, hooves on the ground. People pick him up, and almost everyone smiles.

Then you notice the surface. The whole body is covered in small, uneven carving marks, so the light falls on him differently from every side and no two reindeer look exactly alike. The pale wood is left warm and natural. Only the antlers and the hooves are stained a darker brown, as if he has just walked in from the forest.

Each reindeer stands 21.5 centimetres tall and about 13 centimetres wide, so he fits on a mantelpiece, a windowsill, a bookshelf or between the candles on the Christmas table. He needs no batteries and no plug, and he doesn’t wear out. “You put him out on the first of December and you put him away after New Year’s,” Trevor says. “And next year he comes back out. That’s the whole idea.”

“Some of my reindeer have been on the same shelf for 40 Christmases”

Trevor pulls an old biscuit tin off the shelf above his workbench. It is stuffed with Christmas cards. “From customers,” he says. “Some of them have written to me every single year.” He picks one out, dated December 1986: “Dear Mr Liebelt, the reindeer you carved for us stood on our shelf the year our son was born. Now he puts it out himself on the first of December. It’s always the first thing we unpack.” There are hundreds like it. Many end the same way: see you at the market next year.

The reason they last that long is simple: time instead of speed. A factory turns out a thousand figures in an arvo. Trevor makes one reindeer over about six hours – roughing out the body, carving the legs and antlers, cutting the face, staining the hooves, oiling and checking every piece. “If you rush the antlers, they snap,” he says. “So I don’t rush.”

The last shelf: 287 finished reindeer. After these, the shed in Hahndorf goes quiet.

Why this Christmas is the last one

On 15 December, Trevor will sweep the floor one more time, hang his carving knives on the wall and switch off the work lamp for good. There is nobody to take over. “Melissa is a nurse down in Adelaide, she’s got her own life,” he says. “And you can’t learn this from a video. It takes years before your hands know what they’re doing.” On the shelves stand exactly 287 finished reindeer – his final collection. The last ones that will ever pass through his hands.

This year there will be no stall at the market. His eyes can’t handle a long day in the glare and the heat any more. So for the first time in 47 years, Trevor has said yes to the internet – once. His granddaughter Jess (22) has photographed the last reindeer and put them online. “Pop always said no,” she says. “This time I asked him: do you want them sitting in boxes, or in people’s lounge rooms?” Every reindeer now goes out at a special price, half of what Trevor asked at the market. “I don’t need to get rich on the last ones,” he says. “I want them in homes where somebody unpacks them every December.”

The name, by the way, comes from Jess too. When she was four, she pointed at the reindeer lined up on the workbench and said: “They’re all waiting for Christmas.” Since then the whole family has called them Waiting Reindeer.

What sets Trevor’s Waiting Reindeer apart:

Every reindeer starts as a plain block of wood. The first hour is all knife and shavings.

What customers say about their Waiting Reindeer

“The present that made my dad go quiet”

Customer Sharon L. (49) from Ballarat gave one to her father last Christmas. “Dad is 82 and impossible to buy for. He’s got everything and needs nothing,” she says. “He unwrapped the reindeer, turned it over in his hands for a long time and didn’t say a word. Then he told me his own father used to whittle animals just like that on the back verandah. Now it sits on the shelf next to Grandad’s photo. It was the best present I’ve ever given him.”

A Waiting Reindeer under the tree: for many families, a present that comes back out every December.

Where can you get Trevor’s reindeer?

Trevor’s reindeer are only available through County Craft – an online shop that works with small, independent makers. Jess looks after her pop’s little corner of the shop. Only there will you get the original Waiting Reindeer from Trevor’s shed. Mass-produced lookalikes have started turning up on Amazon and the big shopping sites. From a distance they may look similar. Up close, they have nothing to do with Trevor’s work.

Only until 15 December – then the shed closes

“By the 15th I’d like every one of them to have found a home,” Trevor says, wrapping a reindeer in tissue paper. “After that, it really is the end.” He looks out at the gum trees shimmering in the heat. “47 Christmases. It’s been a good run.”

If you would like one of the original Waiting Reindeer from Trevor’s final collection, don’t wait too long. With the special price and the Christmas rush, the remaining 287 reindeer aren’t expected to last until the shed closes. Anything left after 15 December will still be dispatched while stocks last – but after that, there will be no more.

It is the last chance to bring a piece of real handwork into your home – before the work lamp in Hahndorf goes out for good.

Our verdict

Trevor’s Waiting Reindeer is the kind of Christmas decoration people fall for at first sight and then unpack year after year. Carved by hand in a small shed in the Adelaide Hills, with a face you can’t help smiling at and a warm wooden glow as soon as the candles are lit.

A piece with real heart – thought through, carefully made, with 47 years of experience in every cut. And the last chance to bring one home. Thank you, Trevor!

Readers love their Waiting Reindeer

Photos sent in by readers.