did someone say christmas?!

Christmas. Yes I love Christmas. And now that all my bulbs are in my garden, I’m starting to think about Christmas decorating. Right now I am thinking about what to do with Kugels.

I love old German Kugels.

In 1848, the first glass ornament, a kugel, appeared in Germany. The kugel was a large hollow ball ranging in size from 1 inch to 18 inches. Smaller ones were used for tree decorations. The blown, molded, figural glass ornaments that we are familiar with today evolved from the tradition of blowing kugels. These ornaments were not sold in America until 1880….Kugel is a German word that means “ball” and can be used to describe any type of ball-like object. Collectors used this term to describe any early thick glass ornament with a decorative cap. Early Kugels were too heavy to hang on tree branches; instead they were suspended from the ceiling. Soon after their invention, the Germans decided small Kugels should adorn tree boughs in shapes such as grapes, berry clusters, apples and pears. F. W. Woolworth is given credit for bringing Kugels to America in the 1880s.

~ Kugel History/KugelHouse

My first Kugel belonged to my maternal grandmother’s father, my great grandfather Peter Mathias Scheidhoff of Lancaster, PA. His Kugel came from Germany via other family, not F.W. Woolworth. My Mumma gave it to my mother, who then gave it to me. It kind of started an ornament obsession for me. So now I have a few. And I hang them from the dining room chandelier for Christmas. I use felt garland and suspend the Kugels underneath on heavy fishing line. I acquired a few more at a Christmas sale over the weekend. I was really lucky and they were reasonable in price because they can be really, ridiculously expensive.

I also really like the Lenox porcelain snowflakes. Not the new ones, the ones that were made when Lenox was still a standalone company. I have been collecting them for years and if I don’t hang them on the tree I hang them on a chandelier in the hall. I hang them with thin red or green Christmas ribbon.

I received my first Lenox snowflakes as a gift years ago. My neighbor Lea was moving west to get married and gave me hers. She had a friend at that time who worked at the Lenox outlet somewhere in Bucks County, PA. Since then, I have found a few more here and there and also this weekend I found three more.

I am not a big Lenox holiday ornament person I know some people really are but I do love these snowflakes because they’re just pretty.

My last find for the vintage ornaments of it all were three more Mercury glass birds. My main Christmas tree are birds and pinecones and woodland creatures. And icicles. Glass icicles. Some people like metal icicles, I do not.

Now my husband is adamant about no Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving. I will admit that I have a couple little Annalee guys out. I found them in my vintage ornament travels too, recently.

So I guess the Christmas Chronicles have begun at least in ideas. Do you collect vintage Christmas? Tell me!

Ho Ho Ho 😝

vintage and handmade ornaments are the best!

Most of the Christmas ornaments I have are varying degrees of vintage. I even have some that belonged to my great grandparents who lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

I told all of you about the wonderful vintage Christmas market at the Smithfield Barn. It’s happening today and tomorrow. I realized I never showed you what I bought!

I was actually pretty restrained for me. I tend to go crazy over the ornaments my friend Kristin finds! This year was no exception as she had some vintage ones that were made in the Ukraine. The Ukrainian ornaments are different from the German ornaments and the glass feels different in your hands. And they are so lovely just like old German ornaments!

I am pretty sappy when it comes to Christmas. It literally makes me so happy to decorate and cook for friends and family. And I have always loved vintage ornaments.

My late father loved silver and gold. And somewhere my mother still has boxes of now vintage silver and gold glass ornaments. But I like color in my tree and decorations. I am however primarily a red and green person.

I also love Santas, elves, and nutcrackers. I love handmade and hand carved Christmas decorations as well! I have a whole bunch of folk art Santas and it makes me grin when every one of them comes out of the storage bin where they live the rest of the year.

I also like ornaments that remind me of the nature that is all around me. I have a lot of mercury glass birds both old and new. It’s hard to get really amazing vintage glass birds because people hang onto them. And the vintage ones I have are from my father. A lot of the glass birds are the ones that I see in my own garden. And I even have a glass fox or two.

Also with the nature theme? Mercury glass pinecones. They are among my favorite Christmas tree ornaments and I found some new ones this year at the Smithfield Barn!

The thing you’ll find about shopping at the Christmas market for the Smithfield Barn is they don’t rake you over the coals in price. Things are priced fairly and definitely a lot of the time below other dealers elsewhere. Way below. Part of what makes the Smithfield Barn so special is the way things are paid forward.

And yes, I will also admit I am a not so closet Hallmark Christmas movie watcher. There’s so much ugliness and unpleasantness in the world, the Christmas and decorating for the holidays it’s just a beautiful and warm respite from all of that.

Thanks for stopping by.



pixies and elves

Collecting Christmas….yes I know…not even Halloween but I love Christmas.

The green leaf dish was purchased at the Glenmoore Deli this summer when Smithfield Barn did a pop-up. But the pixies or elves? I hunted them down recently.

Aren’t they cute???

I already have a bunch of green ones and I have some white ones but I didn’t have any red. And I love these elves they’re only a few inches big if that and some I also have are only a couple inches big.

I stuff them into little hiding places in bookshelves, peeking out from behind lamps, scattered on tables and so on.

All of the ones I have are from the 1950s and 1960s and I just love them. You have to hunt for them though because they can be really expensive and they’re not worth over paying for in my humble opinion so I look until I find reasonably priced ones. I hadn’t found any for a couple of years until this year.

These came from sellers on Etsy. VintageCurlyGirl and StarrRoadRetro.

Collecting Christmas is fun and I love vintage decorations!

the mini-tree of it all!

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I make no secret of my love of Christmas and vintage ornaments. Today I completed my six mini-trees and have them scattered about the house. I thought I would share two of the trees with you.

Why have a plebeian elf on a shelf when you can decorate mini-trees?

Please note the largest mini-tree is like 2 feet tall. They all feature ornaments I had either previously collected, found at the Smithfield Barn and other places this year, and a few from my father.

Surprisingly it took hours to get these little trees decked out appropriately…but I had so much fun!

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