30 festive things

Guess who just came out for the holidays? No, I don’t mean Ricky Martin, silly wabbit. I mean our vintage aluminum Christmas tree, vintage Holly Time revolving tree stand and trippy vintage color wheel. ’Tis the season, homies!

Wanna join me in being a kid again? Come on…

holiday nursery rhyme girl

holiday nursery rhyme boy

holiday rocket racer

holiday italian glass foxy

holiday airplane

holiday italian glass bear and tin wind-up car

holiday row boat guy

holiday italian glass stripy tiger

holiday elf

holiday italian glass dopey cat

holiday rosie the robot

holiday glass ray gun

holiday ice cream boy

holiday italian glass dino

holiday wind-up astronaut moonrover

holiday santa

holiday italian glass flowerhead

holiday black robot

holiday tin flying saucer

holiday italian glass fox

holiday girlie robot

holiday liddle kiddles santa

holiday italian glass soldier

holiday creepy santa

holiday wind-up rover robot dog

holiday wind-up robot space cart

holiday tin tokyo firetruck and italian glass ellie

holiday wind-up handcar

holiday italian glass bowtie elephant

And last but not least, the Santa tree topper…

holiday italian glass santa tree topper

Where I find these things (in case you actually care)

eBay | The place to go when you want something specific. My favorite searches: “vintage Italian glass Christmas (or Xmas) ornament”, “vintage sputnik Christmas (or Xmas) ornament”, “vintage atomic Christmas (or Xmas) ornament” and “vintage spinner Christmas (or Xmas) ornament”. I’ve also gotten a few great vintage trees — as you’d figure, just hunt for “vintage aluminum Christmas tree.”

tin toy sites | There are plenty of places to pick up Japanese tin toys, but I tend to frequent tinmantintoys.com and tintoyarcade.com. I gave up trying to score deals on vintage tin toys on eBay — prices are astronomical. Obviously big demand for them by collectors. Since I’m using them as tree decorations, I figure they can be repro. They all come with keys and actually wind up, spin, roll, twirl, etc. They tend to be heavy so I use fishing line to afix them to the branches.

flea markets and antique stores | Good for great old Shiny Brite decorations, felt elves and whatnot. You just never know what you’ll find.

revolving tree stands | There are new ones out there but if you want an old one, try “vintage revolving Christmas tree stand” or “vintage Christmas tree turner” on eBay. If you’re willing to pay a little more to make sure the stand will work for years to come, there are a few sites that recondition the vintage stand motors. Oak Tree Vintage is one of them. Ours was new in the box, dated 1961. Works like a charm… well, most of the time.

color wheels | eBay eBay eBay. I’ve never seen another one that looks like ours… yet.

holiday closeup on the color wheel

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One Response to “30 festive things”

  1. […] to put myself in the mood, I’m pulling out the images of our vintagey ornaments that I posted last year around this time. Ooh, […]

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