Remembering Christmas Past

Old white cupboards, hand-crafted primitive signs, and Christmas socks. Fa la la la la....(Photo from Pinterest)

I am feeling very nostalgic this week thinking about Christmas. Slow to put up my decorations, I have spent too much time on Pinterest looking at holiday photos. I pin my favorites to my Christmas board and am amazed to discover that while my life has had many changes, my idea of what a Christmas house should look like, has remained the same. Pinterest has reminded me of this, where in years past, collecting photos I loved out of decorating magazines showed me what I loved.

The magazine photos (from Country Living, Country Home, Victoria, my choices years ago of favorite magazines, before so many new ones hit the market) and my Pinterest board tell me I still dream of a story-book Christmas, filled with children's toys, antique books, garden items, and Charlie Brown trees.

As a former antique dealer (I've removed that title 'antique dealer' from my list of accomplishments, labeling it 'former', but still put in bold letters - COLLECTOR RUN AMUCK.) I loved setting up for the Christmas extravaganza at the old Lakewood Antique Show at the fairgrounds south of downtown Atlanta. That show was the best and I was at my best during the few years I was a dealer there. My husband was still alive, my friends set up with me, I sold like crazy on Ebay so I could buy like crazy at the show. Selling was never the point of doing the show (this is why I wonder how I ever called myself an antique dealer in the first place) - the friendships and opportunity to spend Wednesday (my set-up day) to Sunday (when I skipped out early to avoid the rush at closing) in an environment I loved surrounded by every delight imaginable from old painted furniture, art, quilts, old toys, vintage garden items, antique books - and a food court, with its individual food trucks, preparing junk food at its finest, highlighted the reason for doing the show. In summer you could melt from the heat, in winter you could freeze your butt off. It didn't matter, it was the best of times. I wrote about Lakewood in The Unfaithful Widow. The transition from federal employee to antique dealer, sitting in the stinking hot summer air, listening to The Pina Colada Song on my cheap radio, was heaven to me.

The show I remember most, where I wanted to take my small booth home with me, was the last Christmas extravaganza before Lakewood closed its doors. I had searched for months, storing away my treasures, falling in love with my merchandize, until that Wednesday I loaded my van and my husband's van, and our tiny caravan to the Fairgrounds began.

The antique chipped red paint twin size iron bed was the main attraction. God, I loved that bed and wanted to keep it, but there was no room at the inn. Piled high with quilts it looked ready for a cold winters night. Three tall Christmas trees (purchased at Kroger, of all places) with metal bases, tall trunks leading up to funky green branches filled with white twinkling lights, sat on top of a green painted book shelf. Pitiful trees that defined a Charlie Brown tree to perfection. An 1800's Cottage Dresser, brown, with gold leaf scrolls and tiny roses on all the drawers, sat next to my red iron bed. The booth was filled with all my favorites - old painted chests, a rocking horse some Dad had made for his children, folk art angels, and shiny brite ornaments, some still in their vintage boxes.

My house took on the same feel at Christmas as it did when I was in the thick of being an antique dealer who didn't sell but played a good game of it.  You would think over the years my style would change, evolve, but it hasn't. I still love all the things I've always loved. Sometimes, something new catches my attention and I work it in, like old tinsel trees and vintage-style white trees. But the basis of my Christmas decorating still revolves around the magic of childhood.

I've dilly-dallied enough.  Today I will pull out my treasures and start to decorate. Check back for photo updates this week. In the meantime, enjoy the photos from Pinterest!

 

I have a collection of angels just like these! (Photo Pinterest)

 

 

 

 

Old shiny brites displayed on my favorite shade of blue primitive chair. I'll take that one please. (Photo Pinterest)

 

 

 

A simple table-top tree in an antique German base. (Photo Pinterest)

 

 

 

Antique toys make the very best decorations. (Photo Pinterest)

 

 

 

My love of all things garden related is evident every season! (Photo Pinterest)

Christmas - A Little Bit Of This A Little Bit Of That

Primitive White Cupboard with Christmas Toys

 

 

As much as I love glitz in some things, I love a country old fashion Christmas. When I used to set up at the Lakewood Fairgrounds south of Atlanta, I loved their holiday show in October. My booth that last year  had an old red iron bed, quilts in red and green, a dark brown cupboard, Charlie Brown Christmas trees with lights that twinkled on the tall skinny trees with their long thin trunks and shelves full of vintage toys . . .  bears, china head dolls and handmade rag dolls. The funkier they looked, the more the charm.

I haven't changed in the years since the show closed. I wish I had kept the red iron bed with its chipped paint and rust! Not that I would have had a place for it, but I could have stored it in the shed and brought it out at Christmas to prop in the yard and scare my neighbors!

 

I started putting out my decorations between edits on my new book. A gal needs a distraction in the middle of such concentration! Two early China Head dolls, an antique jointed bear and a hand crafted black Santa, dressed in a vintage quilt, sit nicely in front of a chipped green paint short shutter. The old white cupboard was a purchase years ago made over a pay phone at Barnes & Noble to my antique dealer friend who was not in the shop and I had to secure my purchase. Pay phones...hmmm, that was a long time ago! But the memory is fresh in my mind!

 

I managed to pop into The Last Chance Thrift Shop on Tuesday and found a few Christmas treasures. The snowman wreath was $1.99. I had to glue a few glitter balls on it to fill in where others had fallen off. I found two huge bags of Christmas ornaments, the funny plastic kind that are inexpensive new, but my shopping good luck netted the two bags for $1.59 each. One was full of red balls, the other large white ones.

 

The mantle in my kitchen has more thrift store ornaments. The silly garden girl was $1.99 and the Christmas balls came from that $1.59 sack mentioned above.

 

This year I may be the laziest gal in town. I am tucking ornaments in with decorative items I keep up year round. I pulled down my boxes from the attic, opened them up, smiled at the lovely things I saw and closed the lid. My house will be festive, but in a slightly different way this year. I'll be posting photos as I go.

 

My dogs are very interested in the flurry of activity with boxes stacked and ribbons flying through the air. Last year my tall white tree did not catch their attention, but I sense boredom on their part with all the rain we've had, and they may need a romp through the house to be naughty dogs even though the sun is bright today. We'll see how they do!

 

The very last photo is from last year. My tree in the sunroom by my computer. It is a favorite of mine. Chloe dreams of a stocking full of milk bones!