’Tis the Season

Well, here we are dashing into December. Time to break out the tinsel and the lack of Christmas taste that become our blog posts every year around this time, but first a little story. Deb and I have been friends for over 20 years. We met when she started coming into my antique store with another friend of hers. I knew right away that we were destined to be friends. We have the same taste and same insanity. We frequently spend a whole lot of time on the others wavelength. Case in point. When our local recycled craft store went out of business a few months ago, by the time they got to the end, they were selling stuff by the bag. The Summer Intern and I were trolling the aisles, and for some reason Deb was not with us. The Summer Intern pulled this out of a box:

Thimble for scale. I looked at it and had no idea why I needed it, but tossed it in my bag. After Deb’s post last week, I now know why it was destined for me. It was because it was destined for her, and will be attached to one of her Christmas presents. That’s how we roll. We know when something we find belongs to the other instinctively, even if we may not know it at the time.

I confess to bringing this home:

I have a soft spot for those crazy paper decorations from the ’50s and ’60s, and this was about as crazy as they come. They must have had a whole lot of this fabric left over from some bad fashion choices, and were desperate to use it up anyway they could. Other than having a vague resemblance to Santa, and hey for all I know, it could be Gandalf, this is not very Christmassy. In my defense, I did list it in my Esty store, as I am pretty sure there is someone out there that needs this more than I.

In our opinion this is a waste of plastic and batteries:

It looks like blobs of plastic under a dome. Could be Godzilla and Mrs. Godzilla tending their hatchling for all we know. They weren’t a whole lot better close up, trust us. If you need a night light, just get one of those plain ones for a buck fifty at Wally World and save your eyes from the horror. You notice how many of them wended their way to the thrift store shelves. A bunch of folks were in complete agreement with us.

Just because you can weave it from wicker doesn’t mean you should:

I am pretty sure this is a photo from happier times at an estate sale a year ago. Looks like the standard lot of Christmas dregs from out in a garage. That basket nutcracker is a basket case. Any self respecting cobra wouldn’t even be caught dead in it. Heck, for all we know there might have been a dead one in there. As good as an excuse as any to leave it well alone. I love baskets, this was a big old pass. Give me the plain basket in back filled with pinecones. Festive done.

Gosh we hope this is not a tree topper:

But if it isn’t, is it the abominable Christmas Tree? Somehow I get the feeling that silver ball in the center is watching me. If Santa is using this to keep an eye on us, I am afraid we said some rather unkind things in his hearing. Sorry Santa, we are only snarky most of the time. We are as good as can be right ’fore Christmas. Just don’t ask our husbands for corroboration on this. I kind of like the jukeboxes in back. Must not have been dolly sized, or we might have been all over them. Of course I already have a doll sized one, so that says something about the amount of doll junk that lives at my house.

We have to admit it once in a while—we found something shelly that we like:

These two little shell covered wreath ornaments are rather pretty. Simple, classy, elegant. Words you don’t hear around Christmas that much. Not that we don’t like a little loud, crazy, and garish, now and then, but it is good to take a break. Since we liked these, it is only fair to show something we didn’t:

Somebody should be apologizing to a whole lot of starfish. A perfectly innocent sea creature gave up its body, and this is what you do to it? OK, it is sort of clever, but classy it is not. I think I would take the bottle brush koala in the Santa hat over this any day. I guess we should be happy they didn’t come up with a way to make a male version. The mind shudders. Giant shell codpiece anyone?

We also take exception to the waste here:

This was a perfectly charming Christmas hankie till someone decided it would make a better skirt for a plastic angel. Seriously, if it could talk, it would probably be begging for someone to wipe their nose on it instead. I might forgive this whole thing, if it weren’t for the waste of the poinsettia linen. Just use some white gauzy stuff. Heck, cheese cloth would probably work. While I really enjoy hankie crafts if they are well, done. Heck, I have seen some wonderful doll dresses made of them, this just should have been.

Not sure what sort of posts we will be doing for the rest of the year. We have some backlogs of pictures that should get us through Christmas, and I think we will have some Boredom Buster posts in January, or maybe some up close collection focused things. If there is something you would like to see, like book reviews, jewelry posts, how to’s, bits of our collections, etc., let us know. As we are not shopping right now due to Covid, we will still do our best to keep you entertained.