Shiny Brite
I am one of those people who is totally cool with listening to Christmas music the day after Halloween. Don’t get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving, but I see no reason that it cannot be celebrated concurrently with Christmas. Christmas is basically a season–there’s Spring, Summer, Fall, and Christmas. Oh, you’re saying that it is technically still Fall and that Thanksgiving happens in the Fall? OK, let me revise. There are only three seasons–Spring, Summer, and Christmas. Halloween marks the end of Summer.
Thankfully, there are many people who agree with my cult of Christmas ideology. One of them, Rachel Lutz, from the Peacock Room in Detroit, recently held a vintage Christmas ornament sale. By “recently” I mean the sale was on November 7, smack dab in the Christmas season.
The sale was held in the lobby of the Park Shelton apartments in downtown Detroit. In case anyone is worried about whether Detroit is actually on its way back, please review that last sentence. There was a VINTAGE CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT SALE IN DETROIT. We back baby, we back.
I got there about an hour after the sale started and it was pretty much cleared out. People were super upset about this. What do you expect though? This was the first year for the event and everything was priced reasonably. Each ornament was 50 cents-1 dollar. Some were $5. People snatched up handfuls and handfuls. There was no way that the organizers could have anticipated the demand. Anyway, the people whining are not true Christmas lovers, as they were not acting at all in the Christmas spirit.
Some rarer items were priced high, but still reasonable.
And then there was this monstrosity:
I mean, it is kind of cool. Just a lot going on.
I ended up buying lots of things, mostly plain ornaments. Mostly Shiny Brite brand.
This old German garland was my best find. It is mega old. At the latest, it is from the 1920s, but perhaps from the turn of the century. This photo does not do it justice.
I am hoping to get a tiny vintage tinsel tree to display all of these pieces, so hopefully at a sale soon I can find one. If not, I will buy a repro one from Target or something. Now that I think of it, that might be the better idea. Some of those old trees are flammable.
Some are even “non-inflammable.” Whatever the hell that means. Here is one I saw on Craigslist.
Non-inflammable? So…flammable?
-Erin
I meant to post this before Christmas, but ran out of time! Better late than never, right?
These pictures show just a portion of Becky and Organ’s Christmas set-up. Back when we were just stalking them and didn’t know them yet, Becky’s Christmas pictures on Flickr were part of what made me know I had to meet them, even if it was just online.
Becky told me that many of the vintage and glass ornaments were her grandmother’s, but all of the Japan kitsch ones are hers. And for those interested in the story behind the tinsel tree, here you are:
“Well, I’d finally decided I was ready to give up on the whole conifer. I love the smells and the trees etc. But I was ready. Last year we’d seen like 3-4 aluminum trees in our local antique stores. We knew we had to hit up the stores before they put their xmas decor out. We hit our local store (What’s on 2nd in Crockett) just after Thanksgiving. Joann explained that she didn’t have any, she sold hers last year. We headed over to Martinez where we’d seen at least 2 last year…At the third store, Alley Cats in Martinez, the lovely lady behind the counter said ‘Oh yes! I haven’t put it out yet, but it’s all in the original box and comes with the rotating light.’ She took us to a storage closet and pulled down a cardboard box. The original $3 aluminum pom pom tree had been marked up as high as $395, down to $350 and now $299. I offered $260, fair even by eBay standards with the gel lights. It turns out the woman who had a booth at this antique store was from Crockett, so it was going back home!”
What a cool story! Many thanks to Becky and Organ for sharing their awesome decorations with us and our readers. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday and are looking forward to a happy, healthy 2014. I know I am.
-Sarah
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a more badass Christmas setup. Have you? Brought to you by our friends Becky and Organ. I have a longer write-up coming in a bit about their cool old Christmas collections, but for now you will have to enjoy this teaser.
Merry Christmas to all! And if you don’t celebrate, I hope you had a nice, warm, relaxing day.
-Sarah
Unearthed these in my “sell separately” photo box. Not sure I’ve ever seen a scarier Santa in my life.
-Sarah