Why I Oughta...

The Marshall Field's Macy's on State Street has jumped on their traditional Christmas decorations with the trumpets installed on the top of the first floor windows.  It also appears that the first few windows down State Street have gone dark in preparation for their annual unveil later this month. I posted a photo about a year ago showing the windows here on the blog . I still get the warm-fuzzies when I think about this place and Christmas.  It played a large role in our family tradition starting from a very young age and we still make an annual visit to the Walnut Room with our kids and cousins. Right after the Macy's transition, this place took a hit in terms of experience and quality.  But, I have to hand it to the Macy's people....they've really tried to improve the place and make it feel 'special'.  The Walnut Room at Christmastime *should* be special.  And they're doing their best to ensure it *is* special for kids like mine who make their

One of my correspondents (Ahem...Nat) sent me this photo of the Christmas section all filled out over at the Target on North Avenue this week.  Christmas Creep - in all of it's glory - is alive and well at Target.  In the bottom right of the photo, you can see a little bit of Halloween stuff peeking through, but they're moving full bore on the Holidays. There's plenty of house decor what-have-yous and it appears that foxes are still 'in' this season.  (Or...is Target's mass audience always a bit behind a trend?  I dunno.  It seems like foxes have been 'on' trend - or is it 'in' trend?? - for at least the past few years.  Don't get me wrong...I like foxes.  But, I just wish there was a Christmas peacock or Christmas giraffe or something....) We're in a funny spot with Christmas this year since we're not in *our* house.  We normally go all-out with decorations and such, but I'm thinking this year will be far more subdued.  We&

Look what we found when we went to the newish Menards in Melrose Park this past weekend:  Christmas has exploded in the patio furniture section with inflatables, blowmolds and some trees.  This isn't the earliest that Menards has done Christmas; back in 2011 I posted a photo back in September with the full 'Enchanted Forest' setup . The Halloween stuff kinda looked shabby, which is super weird because we're still close to four weeks away.  We're planning a "Great Pumpkin" party for the King of the Ball Tossers, so I think a few visits to try to grab some clearance items might be in the offing.

One of the better party-specific souvenirs that are available at the Disney World Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party is this Christmas ornament.  Like a lot of folks, Nat and I use Christmas ornaments as a way to document our travel and Disney delivers for folks like us. The pumpkin has two Mickey ears sprouting out the top and includes the year on one side.  Perfect way to commemorate a trip to the Park during the #NotSoScary party, right?

Last week, there were electricians putting up Christmas lights on the trees along Randolph on the north side of the Daley Center in Chicago. The top photo was on my walk east in the am and the photo at the bottom is from my walk west after work. So, I'm torn.  Christmas creep?  Or is this just plain smart preparation by working when it is pleasant outside?

Take a good look, America.  That right there is Christmas 'stuff' showing up in Costco in Oak Brook, Illinois in August.  Yes....August. This isn't the first time Costco has gone out in August for Christmas.   Back in 2013, I posted some photos from August .   Same in 2012 . You'll hear lots of folks belly-ache about 'Christmas Creep', but I'm not one of them.  Bring it on. I LOVE Christmas.  I love everything about Christmas and having these retailers get ahead of Christmas by booking some revenue in Q3 of their year, than I'm totally ok with it. We didn't buy anything, but don't think I wasn't tempted.  Can't wait for Menards to toss out the Halloween stuff and bring in the Christmas stuff.  Let's go.

At one of the garage sales up in Coloma, I came across a tub of old Christmas stuff and as I usually do and dug out this tree topper angel.  She has a cardboard cone body and a porcelain head and is about 12" tall.  I picked her up and set her aside and kept looking to see if there was anything else in the tub worth picking. When I set her to the side, the lady who was running the garage sale remarked "oh...I remember that angel!  My mom used to put that on top of our tree.  That brings me right back to my childhood.  We would put it up on our tree every year!". I immediately thought...'ut oh.  She's sentimental about this thing, so she's going to either say that she didn't know it was in there and she doesn't want to sell it or tell a higher price like $10.' So...I replied to her:  "Oh yeah.  That's neat.  So...how much do you want for her?" Her answer?  "How about ten cents?" A dime?!?  Seriously?  I ran to m

I picked this guy up at a garage sale recently.  The Babe and I went to a few of them one morning and didn't find much at all.  At this last stop, I spent some time talking to the guy who was selling his stuff and stumbled across the box of his old Christmas stuff.  Buried, deep in the bottom of the box was this little guy.  With two skis and just one pole.  For some reason, he's wearing a "25" bib - which I suspect might be his price tag?  I didn't try to peel it off. I pulled it out of the box and asked the guy how much?  He gave it to us for free!  Well...gave it to us is a nice way of saying that if we didn't rescue this guy from the bottom of the box, he was destined for the garbage can.  What a shame that would have been, right?  He'll go great next to the rest of our collection of little vintage Santas, I think.  He'll add a bit of 'sporty-ness' to the group.

Here's another little Christmas girl that we picked up earlier this month in Michigan.  I think she must be part of a set that holds taper candles.  Might she be an angel?  I packed her away weeks ago, so I can't remember if she has a halo or not? The important part?  The mark on the bottom:

Just placing this photo here as a reminder to myself this fall when I try to drag all the Christmas stuff out of our crawlspace.  This year, I put away 10 tubs, the advent box, the nativity box and 2 other small boxes on the top right.   Now I'll have a reference photo to understand if I have everything out for the 2015 Christmas season. The reason for this is that this fall, I pulled out ALL of the tubs that had *some* Christmas stuff in them.  There was like 22 tubs total.  Lots of them were half filled with stuff and a bunch of them had things in the bottom of the tubs that we stopped using at Christmas (like old lights, plastic ornaments, old tree skirts, etc). This year, when re-packing our stuff up in January, I consolidated everything into these slightly smaller tubs.  (That was the other problem...last year, we were using lots of big tubs - you know the kind - the ones that you have to spread your arms really far apart to carry them).  These are easy to handle, can

The first thing I bought this weekend at the Randolph Street Market was this Santa with a big bulb red nose.  He'll go great right next to our light up tree on the piano.

Look who arrived in the mail:   Santa ! We put in the order for the Bumble (actually...we think we ordered three of them somehow!), so hopefully he's on his way to our house via the USPS.

These three little music-box carolers were too neat to pass up.  They play 'Jingle Bells' as they turn and they came in their original box (see it below). Someone - back in the day - bought this at LeeWards in Elgin for $4.49.  It is a bit delicate, but since it is a music box, it seems like these guys need to be 'out' and not tucked into the glass cabinet with all the other treasurers so folks can hear the tune and see them spin.

It wasn't all felt and cardboard that we bought last weekend in the latest binge on vintage Christmas stuff.  We also bought some pottery - which is what the bulk of our collection is made of currently. These little guys have a nice Japan sticker on their bottom and are all smiles as they carry a big present away to their next Christmas party.

We also picked up this little guy over the weekend from AA in Naperville.  He's not a Santa (which I give preference to), but he is awfully cute.  With arms made out of pipe cleaners and bedazzled in glitter, he'll look great right next to rest of our vintage Christmas finds like that Christmas Tree lighter .

We picked up these two little guys over the weekend as part of a big vintage Christmas haul from Affordable Antiques in Naperville. They're, unfortunately, not destined to have a permanent home in our place.  Nope.  I bought them with someone very particular in mind as they kinda remind me of something from my childhood Christmases past. I think they'll make a nice St. Nicholas' Day gift...

Over the weekend, we picked up this "North Pole Communicator" for the girls. Add another 'activity' to the list of daily Christmas-related things during the month of December.  And...I'm not unhappy about that. The story with this thing is: you set the internal clock to the date/time.  Then...each day the girls can try to tune into the right frequency and 'communicate' with the elves each day.  There's a cartridge in the bottom that contains little sound snippets.  The trick is that it only plays ONCE each day (when you tune in that day) and doesn't go back or forward.  Think of it as kind of an advent calendar of sorts. The 'stay tuned' message that gets played right now (until December 1st) is cute (but loud) so I'm hopeful that the full month of messages will be interesting and worth waiting for...

The final piece (for now) of our Vintage Christmas binge after the New Year are these gift tags.  In this box is 15 different cards.  They're all 3 dimensional and each one different.   And they're stamped "Japan" on the back.  Pretty cute stuff.  

This piece is marked Taiwan (see the mark below), so it normally isn't something that I would pick up.  I've passed a bunch of Taiwan-made Santas. But, this one had that Relpo sticker on the bottom.  And...it says "Chicago, ILL".  So, I couldn't pass it up!

Just like the KneeKnockers from earlier this week , this little Angel isn't ceramic, so it falls outside my normal vintage Christmas purchase criteria.  But, with her little "Made in Japan" mark on her back and her price tag, I couldn't pass her up.  She'll find a place next to the rest of our Angels on the piano next year, I'm thinking.