Visit Your Relatives Day...Nah!

Little known fact: May 18th is also known as "Visit Your Relatives Day"! It is a little known, but actual, holiday. Well, we decided to go to estate sales/garage sales instead because, well, this is what we do together on Saturdays! It's okay...we are hosting a family barbecue at our house on Memorial Day weekend so we will let our family visit us!

Once again, there were no clear cut sales to choose. None of the Tag Sale Companies seemed to be hosting the type of sale that would have the type of stuff we like so...we chose six sales that we thought had some potential and off we went!

Our first sale was an outdoor estate sale run by a family member and had several tables of things to choose from, mostly fairly new though. We did get two Christmas Pez dispensers, a vintage Valentine's Day handkerchief and a new deck of cards, all for 25 cents apiece. Rob LOVES vintage decks of cards but the deck he picked out today was simply for showing our nephew, Peter, some card tricks. 

The second sale was an indoor estate sale and had lots of records, some old furniture and not much else. We did get three records and a cool Christmas tree that plays music while it rotates and was marked "Japan". It was time to break for breakfast and then move on to the last four sales which were 30 minutes away.

 The sign outside of the third sale. There were a few items outside to look at first

And here was the house. It was a funny little house that was pretty cramped and there were a lot of people inside!

Rob searching the bar area, flashlight in hand!

Monica searching through an old trunk for treasures!

And there it was! The basement pencil sharpener. This wasn't mounted to anything but it was found in the basement. We laugh every time we see one! 

We got some more records here and a few other items. We were pretty happy to get out of there because it really was pretty crowded and pretty cramped!!! On to our next stop!

The sign tells us we have arrived! This was another family run estate sale with lots of things inside and out. The backyard patio had tons of records but they were very overpriced. We did find four records and Rob negotiated a much more reasonable price. 

The basement had a very cool tile floor with speckles! There was a lot of old stuff inside the house but nothing that we really wanted but it was the boxes of Christmas items in the backyard that were the best finds of the day. All of the open boxes and the ones near the top of the stack were newer items and Dept 56 village pieces. We dug deeper and the boxes on the bottom contained some amazing vintage Christmas items, some in their original boxes. We paid a grand total of $3 for all of the Christmas items we got here!!! :) 

The last two stops were horrible. Stop#5 had moved all of the items into the garage because it had been raining. There was nothing for us there. Stop#6 ended their sale early because of the rain and it was over before we even pulled up. That's okay...we did not set our expectations too high and came home with some great stuff!

Some of the items we brought home with us:

Some Christmas records...

...more records...

...and more records!

Some Christmas items. The "Candy Filled Boot" box contains ornaments but we LOVED the box. We were able to pick the 12 ornaments we wanted and switch out what was in there. For the second time this month, we got these stencils!!!

More Christmas items. Both the ceramic "Noel" candleholders and the "Yuletide Novelty Tree Ornaments" (ceramic bell ornaments) were still in the original boxes and made in Japan. The two ornaments on the left were from the "boot" box from the previous photo.

More Christmas items. The box on the left is filled with plastic garland; gold colored and shaped like reindeer. It is for the Christmas tree or for the fireplace and, as the box says "Safe For Children". Look at the cool graphics of the "safe" children. Monica liked the box more than the contents. Ha Ha. Okay, I will admit that I liked the "Candy Filled Boot" box more than its contents (Rob)  

Ceramic Pineapple Mugs made in Japan, some Trader Vic cocktail stirrers, a vintage Valentine's Day handkerchief and a blue plastic duck. 


It was a great Saturday out together and although the weather was not what it was supposed to be (it has rained since early Saturday afternoon), we did get to take a walk around our lake together on Friday night.