Vintage Turkeys: How Your Grandma Decorated For Thanksgiving

You know I love anything that has to do with holidays so of course I've been searching the flea markets, thrift stores and eBay for vintage Thanksgiving decorations.  Here's what I've found:

These are some of the items your granny might have used on her Thanksgiving table.  There are colorful paper party plates, crepe paper nut cups, a honeycomb turkey for the centerpiece, place cards and paper mache turkeys.  Most of these were made in the USA around the 1940's or 50's.  Here's a closeup view:

 The little handcrafted pilgrims made from pine cones (above) and wooden clothespins (below) are especially charming.

The larger turkeys are candy containers and made in Germany around the 1920's to 40's.  You remove the head of the one on the right and that's where you'd find the candy.  These were probably party favors given to the children.

These next turkeys are a favorite of mine because they're so comical.  They have big springs on their necks which make their heads bobble and each has a different hat.  I wonder how many different styles of hats they made? 

I love these Skookum Indian dolls and even though I didn't purchase them to be part of my Thanksgiving holiday collection they fit perfectly with the turkey / pilgrim theme don't you think?  These came as kits that housewives could earn a few dollars by putting together so each is a bit different in how they're decorated and dressed but they all have the Indian blanket wrapped around them and they almost always look to the right. 

My trusty little wall cabinet always houses the miniature holiday items.  Tiny turkeys and my favorite candy container: a little boy in a big straw bonnet.  

And as always it was custom to send Thanksgiving wishes in the form of a postcard.  These are from the early 1900's and because I'm a vegetarian I absolutely love the ones where the turkey isn't sacrificed for the Thanksgiving dinner. I always wonder if these cards were created by a vegetarian from the past. :)

This card is the only exception because it matches my favorite candy container!  Wonder which came first: the card or the kid?

 

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

 

A Trip From Sea To Shining Sea

Recently Rick and I made a short trip back home to the Pacific Northwest for a visit with the family and a little walk down memory lane.  We landed in Portland, OR in the wee hours of the morning and after about 5 hours of sleep we drove up to Seattle for a day of sightseeing.

Of course a trip to Seattle would not be complete without visiting Pike Street Market!  The newest addition to the area is the wall of gum!

My sister and niece were with us and of course we had to contribute to the colorful wall.

My contribution is the pink bubble gum heart.

While there we had to stop into Ye Olde Curiosity Shop which is an emporium of oddities including this dog (Petri-Fido) that really made me laugh!

As you can see it was a very foggy but beautiful day.  The Space Needle:

They have a 200 ft high ferris wheel down by the waterfront so you can get some really great views of the city on a clear day but not that day!  It was a great first day of our trip.

The next morning we visited our old workplace: Fort Vancouver NHS in Vancouver, WA.  The Fort is an old Hudson's Bay Company fur trading post that was run by the British in the mid-19th century.

My favorite part of the Fort was the large period garden that Rick and I managed when he was a Park Ranger and I was a Maintenance employee there.

In my first year of working at the Fort I was a Park Ranger / Fee Collector and had a lot of time on my hands so I did some research on one of the families that lived in the Fort in 1845.  They had a young daughter named Cecelia Douglas and I thought it would be fun to create a sampler, pretending to be her, that would feature her family history and show her needle-working skills.  I was hoping the sampler was still being used as an interpretive tool and it was!  Later I realized that the day we visited the Fort, Oct 24th, was Cecelia's birthday.  How cosmic is that?

The next day we spent driving up the Columbia River Gorge which is absolutely beautiful, especially the Oregon side which is dotted with waterfalls and great hiking trails.

This one is called Horsetail Falls.  Can you see why? :)

The big Antiques and Collectibles Sale at the Portland Expo Center was happening while we were there and it was fun to see some of the old dealers we used to buy from when we lived there.  We were  especially happy to see Robert Merck, a fantastic antique Christmas ornament collector who wrote a book a few years back called Deck the Halls.  I was so thrilled to get a little Halloween candy container from his booth.

We didn't have much room in our suitcases but we found a few cute vintage Halloween and Christmas decorations for really great prices.

It was a super fun trip and it was great seeing our family and shopping for vintage goodies too!

Halloween Was Over Too Soon!

Hi!  My name is Patti and I've been a collector of vintage stuff for many years.  I collect lots of things from nature such as seashells and birds nests and this seems fitting since I work at the American Museum of Natural History.  But my favorite collections are vintage holiday decorations and I've been meaning to do a blog to show you some of them, some other goodies I've found at local flea markets and thrift stores, and maybe once in a while I'll show you what life in NYC has been like for me. 

Since Halloween was just a few days ago I'll start by showing some of my vintage Halloween collection:

The image above is my "creepy cool" area and consists of mostly funky freebies I've found on the streets of NYC.  The clock and metal chandelier picture were throwaways from some neighbors who never knew they made my day!  The bottles and preserved bugs in the white cabinet were also items I saved from being sent to the dump. (One man's trash is another man's treasure, right?)

Flea market photos of instant ancestors (the scarier the better).

Found this old postcard rack at the flea market so now I have a great way to display my vintage holiday postcards.  Halloween cards have been the hardest to find with even worn ones costing at least $10 each but I finally got enough to fill the rack.  Next it will be filled with Thanksgiving cards.

I never had a good way to display tiny holiday finds until I came across this cute mirrored cabinet at the local thrift store.  Now all the little candy containers and miniatures can be displayed as a group and not lost in the crowd of larger items.  Above the cabinet are my newest thrift shop finds: ceramic devil girls from the 1950's.  Love em!

Below the wall cabinet are some vintage German jack o' lanterns and one of the newest creations by vintagebycrystal that my boyfriend picked up for me at Martha Stewart's American Made show. 

When I moved to NYC in 1999 from the Pacific Northwest I sold most of my stuff to help fund the move and the one thing I really regretted was selling off my vintage holiday items.  Ever since I've been trying to replace what I had.  This year I finally found my witch candy container.  Ebay was the place to go.  I've seen a few of them on there this season but this was in the best condition. Yay!

A group of cute old American and German lanterns from the 30's, 40's, and 50's. 

Why did it take me until this year to figure out this plate rack could be used to display my old Halloween paper party plates and goodies?  Duh!  These are my new obsession!

The owl plate is my favorite so far but collectors always have new favorites so only time will tell. :)