Cinco De Mayo Weekend!

The first weekend in May means it's time for our annual Cinco de Mayo Party! We have been holding these for a few years and they have been wildly popular with our family! Cinco de Mayo fell on a Friday this year so our party would be held on the Saturday afterwards, aka Seis de mayo, but we still called it our Cinco de Mayo Party. We were very preparing for it during the week and we found ourselves ahead of the game by Friday night. This was good because we still wanted to go saling Saturday morning. We kept our list short with four potential sales making the list. We prioritized them based on potential and got an early enough start to do the best we could. With a plan in place, off we went! 

Sale #1 was located 25 minutes away and was described as a moving sale with 60 years of accumulation. "Vintage holiday" and "records" were amongst the items listed and this seemed like a worthwhile sale even though there were no pictures to support their claims. This turned out to be more of an outdoor/indoor garage sale than a traditional estate sale. There were lots of records to look through and we chose a few to take home. There were also some vintage Christmas things though all but two were broken. We took the two that were in good shape. We also found a package of sketches of the 1969 Mets drawn by Bruce Stark, the sports artist for The Daily News. These packages were issued in limited supply and are not seen much anymore. That, too, came home with us.

Our second sale was a short distance away and was described as loaded with vintage and antiques. It was run by a tag sale company we know and, although the pictures were limited, we felt that this one had potential. When we pulled up, it looked as though everything was in boxes outside and had been pulled from a garage. At this point, our expectations dropped a bit.

Oh...but the boxes. There were lots of them and there were lots of things inside! 

Speaking of inside, there were lots of things inside the house, too! 

There were lots of boxes inside this trailer, too, and that meant lots more to search! 

We spent well over an hour here and we enjoyed this sale a lot despite our initial reaction when we first arrived. It was here that we had our find of the day and we will save that story for later in the post. After this sale, we decided to call it a day so that we would not be rushed making our last minute preparations for our party. 

Saturday evening arrived and with it came our annual Cinco de Mayo Party! 

The kitchen was was decorated to celebrate Mexico and Cinco de Mayo. Our vintage Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass poster made the wall! 

We decorate the house for the occasion

 More Cinco de Mayo decorations

A few more Cinco de Mayo decorations

Lots of Mexican food! 

Lenny and Richard. Everyone had kazoos. You can spot some on the table next to Richard

Monica and Valerie with their kazoos and tiny Mexican hats

Dad with his sombrero! 

We even had a wall with bad hombres.

They were defeated before they shut down the party

The party was a success and we had a great night! The next day, we got to take a look at what we brought home from our morning of saling. Here is what we saw:

Some records

The 1969 Mets Portfolio Of Stars. This was a 20 piece package of drawings by Bruce Stark, sports cartoonist for The Daily News, and was issued in 1969. The folder is a little damaged but all 20 drawings were inside and all are in great shape! 

Also inside the folder were drawings of New York Knicks players, Willis Reed and Bill Bradley, which were drawn by Bill Gallo of The Daily News

A Christmas record and two ceramic spaghetti trim Santas (marked Japan)

Ceramic St. Patrick's Day elves (marked Japan)

Ceramic Jam, Onions and Mustard jars; all marked Japan

A tiki mug, a ceramic clown teapot, a ceramic Easter decoration, a ceramic Niagara Falls toilet ashtray and a plastic New York City snow. The three ceramic pieces are marked Japan.

A spice rack with ceramic duck spice holders. Marked Japan

Pineapple salt and pepper shakers, frog salt and pepper shakers (two for salt and two for pepper) and a chef salt and pepper set with a toothpick holder. All are marked Japan

We got one more thing, too. Now to the story about our find of the day. When we entered the kitchen of the second sale, one area of the floor was dominated by old cookie jars. Rob was talking to the owner of the tag sale company and commented on how many cookie jars there were. She said "Please, buy some". Rob told her that we didn't really collect cookie jars but couldn't believe how many there were, She walked him over to a closet and said that there was another whole closet full. He opened the door to look inside...and there it was! 

This is a picture of Rob's grandmother's kitchen in 1956. His dad is dressed in a dress shirt and apron (evidently just having made breakfast for Rob's grandparents). He had fallen asleep standing up! This was during his senior year in college and he was probably exhausted! To the left of his dad, on the bottom shelf, is a clown cookie jar. It was ever-present during Rob's childhood (Rob lived next door to his grandmother) and that cookie jar was one of his favorites. When he was about seven or eight years old, the lid of the cookie jar (the clown's head) slipped out of his hands and chipped. Still, even after the accident, the clown cookie jar was always there. 

This is Rob's grandmother in her kitchen in 1963. You can see the clown cookie jar sitting on the shelf. You can also see ceramic Scottie Dog banks on those shelves. One went crashing to its demise many, many years ago but we still have the other one. 

When Rob's grandmother passed away in 1994, Rob wanted the clown cookie jar but it was not to be found. No one ever knew what happened to it but Rob never forgot about it. So...what did Rob see when he opened that closet door at that second sale?

The cookie jar! It has some paint loss but is, in otherwise, great shape! It is a 1940's Pan American clown cookie jar and it is now ours! Rob's grandmother was smiling at us! 

It was a great weekend af fun and adventure made extra special because these times are spent together and that is all we ever need to smile!