Why I Oughta...

Once again this year, I participated in the Reddit Secret Santa.  My giftee in this year's version posted the gift I sent in the gallery with a 'feel good' post title of "BEST GIFT EVER" .  When I went to retrieve my match, he gave me some good stuff to work with:  he enjoys trying different kind of beers and he just starting building his own bar in his basement. So...after a bit of searching, I landed on this wood wall-hanging map of the country that hold bottle caps .  Seems like a good conversation-starter in the bar, right?  Collect different caps from different craft breweries around the country and place them in their regions. Here's all the posts on the blog about the different gift exchanges I've participated in (including Christmas for multiple years and a Disney one) on Reddit over the years.

Under three weeks until the Big Guy flies around on his sled and the watchful folks over at NORAD have kicked-off their countdown to the day .  This year marks the 60th year. Back when I was at Google, the company was involved with NORAD and powered the maps and other parts of the program, but it looks like NORAD has gone with (gasp!) Microsoft and Bing!   And Google has gone off and set up their very own Santa Tracker (more on that in a different post).   This is one (of many!) little traditions that makes the holidays great with kids.  Each year, I hand the Babe and the Bird my phone for a bit and have them track Santa with NORAD.  

This morning, we hit up the local Menards to look over their Christmas stuff and I was surprised that A LOT of it was already gone.  Totally picked over.  Like...almost ALL of the inflatables were gone.  And most of the blowmolds.  I guess that's what happens when you put it out in October? But, there were a bunch of different of these Tinsel-y cloth decorations.  This one above is a pretty cute Santa.  He's 110 bucks, though!  So, he didn't end up in our cart.  This seems to be an emerging place of compromise in the great Christmas decorations battle.  Not as crazy as a huge inflatable but a little bit of personality.  The prices on these things will likely come down in the next few years like they've done on inflatables and when it does?  We'll pounce!

This weekend, we went over to Wannemaker's for their annual Christmas season Open House with all three kids and Nat's folks.  This is the second year in a row we've gone and it was a totally lovely experience.  Last year, we got their early in the day and waited for a long time to get to meet Santa and pet his reindeer. This year, we arrived pretty late.  I think it went from 10 am to 3 pm.  We arrived about 230 pm and walked right in.  They switched things up this year.  Last year, it was meet Santa...and THEN...go meet his reindeer.  This year, they put the reindeer part first.  They were allowing groups in two at a time to pet each of the reindeer.  The girls got up close and person with one of them (in the photo above). After that, you went around to the Santa line.  There, they had some cute coloring pages for the kids set up with crayons.  Really great way to keep the kids occupied and give them something fun to do while other kids were meeting with the 'Big G

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.

As part of our annual New Year's tradition up in Michigan, we make a stop at the Great Lakes Antique Market and I gorge on some 50% off vintage Christmas stuff.   Here's the kickoff post from the 2014 series .  We went to two of these markets - the normal one in Coloma and a bigger one in Saugatuck a day later.  I think Nat preferred the Saugatuck market, but based on the prices alone, I'm more of a fan of the Great Lakes version. This first piece is a Holt Howard Santa Claus bell from 1962.  After seeing him in one of the booths, I couldn't pass it up.  Here's the upskirt below showing off the Holt Howard mark and the Japan sticker. This wasn't the only bell that we bought, but it is our first.  So...maybe there's a trend coming?

As we've done in the past, we shopped a bit for vintage Christmas finds when we were up in Michigan for the New Year.  There's usually some great deals on the Christmas stuff as the dealers don't really want to pack their goods up and wait a whole calendar year to try to sell it. We saw these two kneeknockers and while they're NOT what we typically buy (pottery), I couldn't pass them up.  Best part?  Just like a Cabbage Patch Kid, these guys have a mark on their tuckus. I'm going to take the next few days to show-off a few more of these vintage Christmas finds we scored.

A few weeks back, we dropped off a load of stuff at GoodWill and while there, I couldn't help but take a quick pass through the aisles to see if there was anything interesting.  This blowmold Santa - standing at about 15" tall - was listed at $1.00.  With the 20% off coupon in my hand from the donation, I snapped him up for all of $0.80. It wasn't until I got home to figure out if it worked, but lo and behold, after a tightening of the bulb, it glows just right! The Babe was with me and she said that she wants him to stand guard in her room during the holiday season.

Over the long holiday weekend, we took the girls and went with Nat's sister out to the Kane County Flea Market.  Everyone came home with something.  Nat scored an old book, her sister added to her bronze 'critter' collection, and I picked up a few vintage Christmas things including this little Mrs. Claus. She has some spaghetti-like trim, so she'll go nicely with the other pieces we have like this Santa . There were a bunch more things I would have picked up, but the prices seemed high to me.  That appears to be the big difference:  garage sale folks just want to get rid of things and sometimes don't really care what the prices are whereas the Flea Market folks know *exactly* what they have and charge prices as such.

Speaking of Christmas Creep ...we got into a bit of it ourselves with a few purchases at a garage sale in our neighborhood last week. I couldn't pass this guy up and I think he'll go great amongst our collection of other vintage Santas in our holiday decor.  T he most recent example of one of these guys here .  And, here's another one with Spaghetti Trim . This one is old, but I'm not certain the exact date of manufacture.  As you can see below, it is a bank, but it also has a "Made in Japan" sticker on it, so that gives it some historical markers and places it amongst the rest of our collection. Pay no attention to the price tag on this one.  Every year we go to the Vintage Christmas show, we always pay quite a bit more for these ceramic guys, so I was thrilled to find a deal like this. I'll post about the rest of the stuff we bought, but after putting together a 'package deal', I think we paid less than even what they were asking here (

This Santa face would look really great hanging off the top of the pavilion in our backyard, wouldn't it? I'm planning on adding another reindeer to our front yard blowmold collection this year, so maybe I'll splurge and get both.