The Vintage Christmas Stuff Post

So I am finally posting the vintage Christmas goodies found this year.  It seems like every year it gets a little bit harder to find the good stuff and I am in stiff competition with some professional pickers but I have a good eye and know where to find it. Here are my finds this month:

One of my favorite finds this year is the 1951 Whitman Night Before Christmas.  It is almost 2 feet high and likely that is why few of these survived.  This one has no writing and is in excellent shape.  I used to collect all kids antique books but now am limiting myself to vintage and antique Christmas books.  This one is very resaleable condition as they go for good money on Ebay but it shall be tucked away with the rest of my collection.

This is the first vintage/antique Santa figural glass ornament I have found.  He has some paint loss but is definitely old, a neat addition to the collection.

This must be the year of gnomes and elves - another favorite find this year were these two little dudes.  All of the above finds were found at thrift stores.

 In my antique store cabinet I house my bottle collection - but at Christmas it becomes a stage for these guys, the elves.  The red knee hugger in the middle in the upper picture is one that my Grandma gave us in 1969 - the year I was born. All of the others I bought as a group lot for $16 on our 24 hour bidding site a week ago - these are so bloody hard to find these days in decent condition so I was happy to be able to win the bid on them.  Now I have an actual collection of them. In the picture below is one of the largest vintage knee huggers that I have seen, he almost looks like one of the Rice Crispie guys snap crackle or pop.

These are two made in Japan seven dwarf figures - I actually bought them last year near Christmas on our bidding site but hadn't shared them yet.  I am guessing these are from the 1960s. 

We bought this antique mahogany store cupboard a few years ago - it looks neat all Christmasfied. I put glass containers (bought at the thrift store of course) full of extra vintage balls on top, they look a bit like gigantic gumballs.  

On to the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.  These ceramic trees were popular in the late 1960s and 1970s.  They even make some modern versions.  I actually bought this tree to resell but got it home and realized it has a slant, must have tilted in the kiln.  It is missing a couple of lights but you can buy those on ebay.  It is missing it's original base and inside light - I just put some white Christmas lights inside and put it on a mirror and it looks great!  Hubby wants us to keep it so we will, for now.  It's growing on me.  I did put some carpet tape on the underside so it doesn't lean as much as it did.  I put my tiny Mexican nativity scene (bought 20 years ago in Mexico) in front of it and it works.

 I found this cute little Fitz and Floyd Santa candle holder in a thrift store this year - he is clearly marked 1977 on the bottom.  I often find single candle holders - likely his partner was damaged but I am more than happy to have just one of him.  If you want to start collecting vintage Christmas figural stuff - look for FF (Fitz and Floyd) stickers on the bottom or HH (Holt and Howard).  I have several of both styles now.

 I am only showing a single ornament = the red icicle which represents three complete boxes I found at the thrift store in pink, blue and gold.  I already have about 10 of these ornaments already on my tree so have decided to temporarily hoard the three boxes full since they are so difficult to find these days, especially in their original boxes and complete sets.  It must have been one household that decided to purge and donate them to the thrift store.

If you are a new reader to this blog - or just love vintage Christmas stuff like I do put in vintage Christmas in the search area of this blog and you will see finds from other years.  I sell a small part of it but keep most of it - I have amassed a beautiful and valuable collection.  I didn't even post more pictures of glass indents this year, found a few but have so many not all make it to the tree every year.  By selling what I don't love and keeping what I do my out of cost expense for this collection is pretty much zero.  

Now it is time for a confession.  I fully intended to get a real tree this year.....but the idea of waiting until the 15 of December(the first date after our trip to Alberta that we could likely get a real tree)  was killing me - so I tossed in the towel and put up our old fake tree.  Even better though, I had always thought that I couldn't get replacement bulbs for it as it's 15+ years old but someone at the hardware store showed me how to rethread new lights into old sockets - so now my tree is looking better than ever.  I had to fix at least 24 lights on it - they had slowly been dying off.  

I will however, still get to go tree hunting with my best friend as part of my Christmas gift to her as we have a truck and she doesn't.  So - I will just get some boughs and make an arrangement inside that weekend and still be able to get the full tree aroma in the house, which is what I was going for.  Hubby made me realize that it might be sketchy putting up a real tree in a wobbly base with many extremely valuable glass ornaments on the tree - he is probably right.  

Hubby is on a business trip right now, the last one of the year and flies home late tomorrow night - then we are off on Friday for our family December visiting weekend.  We like to travel early in December versus right at Christmas time and since all the kids are adults they completely understand.  

Due to our visit I have been cleaning house, doing company business and last night had a cookie making marathon.

I made 4 dozen fruit cake cookies (my favorite since last year) and 2 dozen peanut butter kisses.  Is it just me or do they look a little nippley?  Anyway, they taste good and that is what matters.  I will bring some to my nephew and the kids and freeze the rest for our own consumption closer to Christmas.  I just might of had fruitcake cookies for breakfast this morning.....good thing I am back to walking 10,000 steps a day.  

I hope everyone is surviving this crazy season - I have done most of the hard work, after we get back from Alberta I still have a major work project to work on but we can just mostly enjoy the rest of the season right up until Christmas.  Have a great week everyone!