VINTAGE CHRISTMAS MONDAY

I am joining Joan at Anything Goes Here for Vintage Christmas Monday. This is a fun event that Joan is hosting every Monday through Christmas. You can visit all the girls participating by clicking on Joan's button on my sidebar. Thank you, Joan for hosting this event!!
These little angels are from The Vermont Country Store, which has a marvelous catalog and website that sells all things from the past. A lot of items like old fashioned sweets and confections, home and beauty products, and my favorite, old fashion flannel nightgowns for our cold Midwestern nights. Heaven! I remember these little candles from when I was a little girl. My mother had them and I think she may have gotten them at Woolworth's. She didn't drive and the closest town was about 10 miles away. So we walked, my mother leading her six little ducklings to a corner along the highway where a bus would pick us up and take us to this town. I remember that besides Woolworth's, there was a Sears where we bought our appliances, and a Fannie Mae, which was not on the itinerary. After shopping in Woolworth's for things like socks, underwear and toiletries, we were rewarded for good behavior by having lunch, which was inevitably grilled cheese, or hot cocoa at the snack bar. I think of those days when I see my little angel candles. In fact, I ordered three more because the head broke off one of them. She is not looking too appealing headless.

I also have these reproduction ornaments that are just like the ones hanging on my Dad's tree now, only his are the real deal. Again, I remember examining all of the ornaments on the tree once it was up and just loving the glittery pictures and script. Weren't the ornaments of our childhood just so fascinating? I took these pictures last Christmas as alas, I have not even brought my boxes upstairs yet. And...I am going to do a thorough cleaning of the house before I do. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with so many thing to be thankful for, but I had a lot of cleanup to do afterward. I got Abigail off to school yesterday (sniff sniff), and today I will keep busy with the cleaning and the boxes. Friday I will go buy our tree. :-)
Christine, my good friend from Christine's Home And Travel Adventures had a Pay It Forward Giveaway, and I was one of three people that won. Above you will see the gifts she so generously sent me. How I love getting packages in the mail from my blogging friends and you know, I got to meet Christine last April when she was in Chicago. We had such a fabulous time and I am so hoping we will get together again soon. She sent me a set of four gold chargers and you can see the ornate detail along the rim. The little gold ornaments are actually place card holders. How elegant!
Here you can see a pretty silver box with a verse on it that I love. Inside were these pretty peace dove ornaments that I believe you can put a picture in. Well, I will try. The crochet doily is also from Christine and in the back you can see a gold wreath she made that I put a candle in. It can be hung of course but I think it looks so pretty this way. All of the winners will receive the wreath. She also gave me a cute little ceramic candle holder with two birds on it and it got cut out of the picture. Sorry! I will post it another time...it's SO cute!
And finally these cute letters. Gosh, I hope I smiled enough when I met her...I know I had a great time!
In my last post, I rambled on at the end about the progress of my kitchen at the lake. I had my new knobs and pulls put on. Well, I forgot to post the picture. I don't think anyone noticed!! So here it is, better late than never. As I said, my counters are full of stuff, but I don't stage too often, and I am a clutter bug. I was just sitting there one evening and it looked so pretty with just the pendant lights on, so I took some pictures. Anyway, you can read my ramblings below in that post.

Now I want to tell you that it is my turn to do the Pay It Forward. The first three people to comment on this post will win the PIF. I will send each person a gift(s) and in turn they will have a Pay It Forward and do the same. It is a lot of fun. I have to say that I will probably not get the gifts out until after the new year because of the congestion at the post office, but as you can see from the package I received from Christine, it will be well worth the wait! Now off I go to visit all the people in Vintage Christmas Monday and then I have to clean (ugh). I hope everyone has a great week!! :-)