Why I Oughta...

Hard to put away all the Christmas stuff without a few glitches, right?  This year, we lost a number of our vintage glass ball Christmas ornaments.  Most of them were common ones - just a single color.  But a few of them were these more interesting ones - with writing/stripes/what-have-you on them.   I posted some photos of a good haul that we picked up at an Estate Sale in Elmhurst back in 2016 , but I don't think the one in the photo (below) was from that group.  That same year (2016), I bought another set of vintage glass ornaments (in these nice cardboard storage boxes) and *those* blue ones were some of the ones that shattered this year.   One of the things that I'm trying hard to focus on in 2022 is the notion of 'stuff'.  I read this post from Jason Kottke that references a Wired piece from Paul Ford titled:  A Grand Unifying Theory of Buying Stuff .  After reading those posts - the line about not 'buying stuff for my stuff...

 I'll have more to say in a couple of days, but for now, I think a lot of people are celebrating the end of 2020.  And we're joining them.  Nat hung this ornament on our tree that reads:  2020 stink, stank, stunk.   I know others are marking 2020 with ornaments with masks on them, or toilet paper.  I think this one feels right for our house.  

This might be the killer crossover.  For me, at least.  This is a vintage Mickey Mouse Christmas ornament.  Sits right at the intersection of vintage Disney and vintage Christmas and is perfect for our house.  I was given this as a gift by Nat's Mom recently.  Mickey himself is in great shape and has almost no wear on him.  He's holding a big candy cane and some holly and waving with his other hand - covered in a green mitten.  He has full eyes - he's not 'pie eyed' - so someone with some history with Disneyana can likely date this particular ornament.  There isn't a sticker on him, but on the back of his belt there seems to be a little bit of residue that a sticker might have lived.  I imagine a 'Made in Japan' sticker was there, right?  I have a few pieces of Disneyana here on the blog including this Estate Sale Disneyland pennant (which...reminds me to post about something else soon).  The other items posted here are:...

Continuing the series of items that 'got away' from a recent Estate Sale up in Wisconsin.  First there was the telephone chair .  Then Da original Mare primary poster .  Then the Snoopy bank from my childhood.  Today, it is this set of beautiful Christmas ornaments.  I've bought plenty of vintage glass Christmas ornaments from Estate Sales and Garage Sales over the years.  But they were almost always a deal.  Like $1 a piece.  As you can see in the photo above, this sale had a heckuva collection.  Some really nice ornaments.  But they were asking $5 a piece for each of them.  Too rich for me.  I took this photo on Friday and knowing that they cut the prices on Saturday, I went back.  And all of these were gone.  At 50% off, they're closer to being the right price for me.  But alas, they weren't meant to be.  Seems that how I value these is off from the market?  Good data point for when I come ...

A few days ago, I posted a photo of a little brass letter rack that I picked up at an Estate Sale recently.  I also stopped at a garage sale or two on the same trip including the one where I bought a few vintage Christmas items  - one of which is this flat Santa Mouse felt ornament.  He has a cute little bow that has a couple of bedazzles on him and he reminds me of both the vintage felt ornament that I made when I was a kid and this flat Mrs. Claus felt ornament that I picked up last year at an estate sale. This year, we'll be back to decorating our *own* place and having a tree (or two?!?) and we're always looking for 'low-hanging' ornaments that the Big Beef/King of the Ball Tossers can reach and not shatter/break.  So, I'm sure this one will find a home somewhere low this season.  Should be a nice addition to our holiday.

We were at my folk's house over the weekend where the kids helped add all the ornaments to Noonie's Christmas tree and help set up Papa's Lionel Christmas Train.  One of the ornaments that the girls brought to my attention was this one above:  me in Kindergarten from 1983.  Lots of blonde hair in my bowl cut....what a dude!  I have the sneaking suspicion that the King of the Ball Tossers is going to look an awfully lot like this in just a few short years.  (Hopefully, with half Nat's genes in him, he'll be a lot cuter, smarter and kinder than his old man!  And...if I'm hoping, I might as well hope for a punter, too, right??) As for my Dad's Christmas Train:  Since we're staying at Equation Boy/Man's house, we haven't set up our train for a few years and with my parents moving into their new place with a HUGE basement, my Dad had designs on a new layout for this year's holiday season.  I went to one of our storage units and climbed on top...

Over the weekend, we packed the kids into the minivan and drove around Hinsdale looking at some houses/house features as we work to finalize our own house.  We saw some pretty beautiful places, but we also came across an Estate Sale.  Which.....I couldn't *not* go in, right?  It was a nice, old house on the outside, so my hunch was that there'd be some gems inside. After waiting for my number to be called (yeah...it was one of those Estate Sales.  Where they had you pull a ticket like you do when you're waiting at the deli counter.), I got in and poked around.  Nothing.  At least for us.  So, I went outside to the garage and discovered something!  They had a few cases of vintage 3 1/4" glass ornaments in their original boxes.  That's the side of the box above and the top of the box below.  They say "American Made" from Coby Glass Products.  If you poke around on the web , it turns out that Coby likely didn't make these, they we...

I posted some photos of the batch of vintage glass ornaments I bought at an Estate Sale earlier this week and mentioned in that post that there was one more ornament that came with the set.  And here she is!  She's some sort of felt version of Mrs. Claus who has a bunch of bedazzling on her with her Christmas best on and she's carrying a pie with both hands.  She's maybe five or six inches tall and a mirror image on the other side of her.  And awfully cute. We have a few ornaments that look/feel like this and they all came from Anthropologie.  I could totally see something like her hanging in their store and selling for $12.99. As for us, she was a no-brainer.  We are always open to 'unbreakable' ornaments that we can hang low on the tree for the kids to see, touch, and yank on.  She'll go great down there amongst her brethren.

A few weeks back, I picked up this ornament case and these 14 vintage Christmas ornaments at an Estate Sale in Elmhurst.  It was the same sale where I picked up this hobnail milkglass pitcher and this vintage White Sox book .  Quite the haul... The ornament case was found where most Christmas stuff ends up - buried either on the floor under a table or in the basement.  When I opened the case, it was totally full, but I pulled out the ornaments that I didn't want that were newer and the seller at the sale was glad to keep them to try to sell to someone else.  We see these type of ornaments all the time at sales and most of the time they want anywhere between $2 and $4 a piece for each of them. Sometimes they're not even really that old, but just look old.  And each time, I usually pass. Both, because glass ornaments like these aren't destined to last super long on our tree with the three savages roaming around and shaking the tree, but also because we hav...

Over the weekend, the kids and I piled into the minivan and ran some errands around town that included a bunch of stops at various garage sales in and around Elmhurst.  On one of those stops, I came across this little angel ornament.   She has those *big* eyelashes.  They totally remind me of these 'lashes on this reindeer ornament that I found a few years back . Sure, she's cute, but when I turned her over, I was sold.  After all, this thing was, indeed, made in Japan, but exclusively for Lee Wards in Elgin, Illinois .   The asking price?  A mere $0.25.  She's gone to a good home and will (hopefully??) make an appearance on our tree this year (or...if we're still not in our house, then maybe next year!

These pair of merry guys with pretty nice mustaches were found up in Coloma at our usual haunt.  They're Christmas ornaments and were sold in a pair for just fifty cents.  The one on the right with the red hat is missing a pearl pin in the center of his hat on the front, but otherwise, these things are in pretty great shape.  Especially for being decades old.  Hard to believe that someone kept them for all these years only to let them go for just a quarter a piece? They'll go great with the rest of our vintage Christmas stuff , won't they?

This Santa is both an ornament AND something that could be a tabletop decoration as someone has put a little base with green 'feet' on the bottom of his glass ball.  I really like this guy as he's kind of a mash-up of Santas with felt bodies + Santas with pipecleaner arms + a vintage glass ornament. He, too, was bought up in Michigan at the first of the year. He'll look great next to the rest of our Santas next year.

Another day, another vintage item from the Great Lakes Antique Market.  This time, it is a vintage plastic nativity scene ornament that has what looks like a 'wise man' and his camel.  We have a few of these plastic ornaments with cut-outs on our tree and I really like them - both for their look, but also because they can handle a bit more abuse than a normal vintage glass ornament can.  The kids are savages when it comes to handling the tree every year.

 Maybe my favorite item from this year's post-Christmas vintage haul is this guy here:  a pirate snowman.  I mean...guys....who doesn't adore a vintage pirate snowman.  Complete with eyepatch and gold ring in his year.  And that swasbucklin' belt?  Perfect. He's marked "Made in Japan" and will be a welcome addition to our tree next year right next to these two vintage beauties .

This past weekend, we stopped at an Estate Sale on Saturday morning in Elmhurst and I immediately headed right where I usually go:  the basement.  There I found a bunch of 90's Christmas stuff and then after looking around, I spied a box of older Christmas stuff under the tables on the floor.  Digging through there, I found this beauty of an ornament. This appears to be a homemade/handmade ornament from who knows when, but it isn't new.  It is based on a styrofoam egg with quite a bit of pined bedazzling going on.  There has to be close to 100 pins of pearl around this thing and someone with a lot of patience put it together. On the front, there's a little plastic angel playing a violin with a little mirror behind her.  She's surrounded by gold and pearl. When I picked this thing up, it felt good.  Felt substantial. I know - based on where this was in the basement and the fact that this was the second day of the Estate Sale - that if I didn't...

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?