Waiting For Christmas In July

So many thrift shops have their "Christmas in July" sales at which they try to "move" all of the Christmas items that they have in storage. Some of the items are leftovers from last Christmas and some are items donated since Santa last arrived. We have been lucky enough to find some good Christmas items during these sales over the years. Since we were off on Friday, we decided to squeeze in a little thrifting during the day. We knew that a lot of the Thrift Shops would be closed for the long weekend but we had our fingers crossed that we could find something out there!

 Our first stop was actually at an estate sale we saw advertised for Friday. It was an interesting house but all we wanted were a couple of "whistle" cocktail stirrers. The people there were nice and gave them to us for free.

We went into three Thrift shops nearby (others were closed) but there was no sign of "Christmas in July" yet nor was there much to bring home. Rob DID buy two brand new black t-shirts that he got for $2 apiece. Despite a pretty empty trunk, we went home smiling. We had fun and we had adventurous dinner plans ahead (see the previous post for details)! 


So on Saturday, we set our sights on four sales. There were not that many out there because of the holiday weekend but we had high hopes that we would find something good. 

The first sale was an outdoor garage sale that advertised some "vintage" items. Although they did not have much, they did have some records and we got 7 of them. And, in a bin outside, they had the almighty old pencil sharpener which probably once was attached to a wall in the basement. We always laugh when we see these! 

The second sale was also outdoors and was a complete bust. Yes, they had a few interesting old things. No, they were not even close to being reasonably priced nor were they in any mood to negotiate. We walked away empty-handed. Well, we WERE holding each other's hand (as we always do when we walk) and that is always nice! 

The third sale was run by a Tag Sale Company that we know pretty well and we got some cool things here!

The house!

One cool door (blurry picture...sorry!)

Another cool door!

Rob digging around. This room was not air-conditioned and it was hot (as the back of Rob's shirt shows)!

Very groovy wallpaper on the wall!

The bathroom looked like Greg Brady decorated it. Check out the window shade! They were made of blue and green beads! Groovy!

The fourth stop was also run by a Tag Sale Company we know and, as we drove down the street and saw what house it was, we both said "ooooooooh!" at the same time. It was exactly the type of house we wanted to see. The potential was great for old items! 

Older house...built in the 1950's...not a lot done to the front of the house (except the new porch and bay window) = POTENTIAL!!!

Monica digging through the basement. The basement, while organized, had lots of boxes. Even though we did not make it here until mid-afternoon, we found a box of vintage Christmas items completely unsearched! We spent over an hour here and found lots of great things and, because it was late in the day and they know us, it was absolutely dirt cheap!!!! 

Some of the things we got this week:

Some records

Some more records

Lots of books (mostly old cookbooks)

Lots of old Christmas items including several Gurley Candles dated 1950 below their bases, plastic snowmen and plastic reindeer

Some more Christmas items. The box in the upper left is an old greeting card box.

Donkey Party game (all contents intact), a "Space Ship" sewing needle kit and a sealed vintage Cookie Mold aluminum tray

Easter bunnies, plastic Indians, vintage paper drink umbrellas and more

Old Christmas icicles in their boxes, a Valentine's Day poodle made in Japan, some Bazooka comics and prize booklets from 1965 and a Cap'n Crunch cereal prize from 1963 still in its package.

An old Easter mini coloring book and some vintage greeting cards

A pair of vintage tension pole record holders (we supplied the records for the picture). We have rarely ever seen these but we had one already. We purchased the two of these. One has a base with a tensioner on top. The other has tensioners on the bottom and top, just like the one we already had. 

After a long, hot weekend, we drove down to the beach Sunday evening just to walk along the beach and cool off. We DO live on an island after all and it was 20 degrees cooler by the shore!

A beautiful night at the beach

We posed in front of the waves

A beautiful sunset!

A message in the sand that we were here together as we will always be.