HAPPY DECEMBER! It’s been a heavy work day today on this 2nd day of December and we’ll be printing, packaging, and shipping literally hundreds (to maybe 1,000) physical photos this month and also designing & printing physical wedding albums for clients (while also still taking more 2021 wedding consultations and other clients), so we figured we’d stop for a handful of hours to share some things with you this Weekly Wednesday! One exciting and positive thing to share: Since Jenny has retired from her annual volunteer coaching 5th to 8th grade volleyball, we’ve decided to help foster children get loving homes by aligning with an organization that will be having us capture photos of the children individually throughout Northern Indiana and interview them (with the results going online for potential foster parents to see). In these dark times, we’re SO excited to make a positive difference in some kids’ lives since they truly deserve it. This year has been so difficult, so it feels right to try to bring some positivity to the world!
Though throughout 2020 we’ve tried to bring positives to the world and help people out in any way we can, this week feels a bit dark again learning about more Super Spreader Thanksgivings/ November get-togethers. A large portion of our extended family (not our immediate families) has now tested positive for Covid-19 literally here in South Bend, so PLEASE as we move toward Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, & the New Year with the HIGHEST NUMBER OF COVID CASES ALL YEAR right now… STOP gathering. At least 18 of our family members (all from one family/ 5 households) decided to go against all medical advice and still gather, so now at 10 of 18 have tested positive for Covid-19 so far. This is what the doctors predicted, so please take heed of medical advice or it likely WILL happen to your loved ones at some point. Our sister-in-law’s hospital’s Covid unit is FULL (taking no other Covid patients), our hospitals are almost filled, the Elkhart hospital is getting a refrigerated van to fill with dead Covid bodies that they don’t have room for in the morgue, 3 of our siblings work in healthcare, other relatives are doctors and nurses, and we don’t take this lightly.
SIGH As we try to socially distance ourselves from the hell that is this year, please enjoy some peaceful photos of our Vintage Christmas décor. We decorated our house the day after our at-home Thanksgiving that we celebrated with just our 3 pets. We’ve been collecting little mostly $1 to $5 vintage holiday décor at estate sales, yard sales, thrift stores, and more over the years and it’s finally seeming to look a bit more cohesive!
There’s something special about older Christmas decorations with their unique style & designs that we just love. A lot of what we have collected over the past few years was manufactured in the 1960-70’s abroad. These are definitely Jenny’s favorite type of decorations. These characters all have a unique sort of kawaii aspect to them that reflects the Japanese influence.
Some of our oldest pieces we own date back to the 1950’s, while others are from the 80’s and 90’s to help us get a fix of childhood nostalgia. As we said, most of the items we have come from estate sales, antiques vendors, or yard sales since upcycling is always a main focus for us. Especially pertaining Christmas items there’s always an overwhelming amount of modern low quality Amazon junk that is still being produced and ending up in landfills. We try our best to avoid purchasing anything “new” i.e. made in the 2000s in regards to these decorations.
The only real modern touch we’ve added to any of the decorations comes in the outdoor decorations with some modern strands of Christmas lights mixed in with our vintage strands. The blow molds we have are vintage, but sometimes need newer bulbs or wires, otherwise we try to stick to vintage!
In the mix we also have some little art dolls that we’ve bought from our friend/ local artist/ hand sculptor Rhonda Whitledge over the past 5 years-! (We tried to count how many little items we’ve bought from her over 5 years and hit around 20, then stopped counting). We’re pretty fond of these 4 Christmas dudes below, but they’re not even all of the Christmas ones we’ve gotten from her! We’ve even bought them as gifts for our immediate families over the holidays!
We also have a pretty great collection of vintage and modern ornaments. We are both suckers for the old style blown glass bulbs and have come across many for great prices at some local antique dealers. Although a mixture of old and new, the bulbs all generally have the “vintage style” to their designs. For some of the neat older ornaments from the 80’s-90’s we invested in a larger tree for a the low low price of $15 at a second hand shop (Thrift stores end up with a lot of fake trees that they don’t have space for so they sell them off very affordably). We now have three trees which is excessive, but necessary.
What seems like a crazy amount of decorations stores really well, and all fits into a few large boxes on a shelf in the basement. What good is a basement if it isn’t at least 33 to 80% decorations?
We’ve been decorating more and more over the past few years for Christmas and finally seem to have convinced a few people on our block to join in. Our house used to be the only one decorated for the holidays, but now several of our direct neighbors have too put up a few lights and trees. (The front of our house is definitely the brightest in the whole area though).
(Christmas Tree #3 which was probably actually the first or second tree we got 5-ish years ago!)
This is actually our first year using the vintage long strands of yard light up candy canes & lollypops and we absolutely love them! We found them all in a garage at an estate sale and didn’t even know if they worked, but for $7 we had to at least find out! (Spoiler: Almost every single one worked)!
We once bought a giant, giant storage bin at an estate sale for $5 and much to our surprise it was filled with a mountain of wreaths… so though it didn’t help much with storing our old decorations, we now have a lifetime supply of thrifted wreaths-! lol.
This year has been crazy, often scary, depressing, and just overall weird, but at least for a moment we can all stop and look at some colorful twinkling lights. (Cue this few second scene from the beloved children’s movie A Bug’s Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTUQyEr-sg0 … the end seems 2020 accurate). Take a few moments to stop, admire some bright decorations, and remember the holidays past and the hopeful return to regular holidays in the future. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this or just admire our (at times crazy) decorations! Stay Safe and Happy Holidays!