Santa and his Elves

I found these pieces in a dollar box of Christmas ornaments at an estate sale this summer.  When I took them to the register to pay, the estate sale manager was visibly angry that she'd missed them and wanted to charge more for them.  I think she ended up tacking on 50 cents just so she could feel better.

Santa and the elf here are separate pieces that I thought would look cute staged this way, but given the look on Santa's face, maybe not such a good idea.

And finally, this little elf almost looks like a devil. Maybe he's one of Krampus' helpers.

Jitters the Elf

I found this caffeinated elf at a garage sale this summer.  At $5, he was a little more than I normally would spend on something like this, but it was larger that usual and the subject matter won me over. Marked simply "Japan" on the bottom, I'm not sure who the manufacturer was.

Odds are, after that coffee, this is one elf who won't be sitting on a shelf.

Today's Garage Sale Finds

Today I'm going to forgo my usual posting of individual finds and give a complete picture of one sale I attended this morning. It will give you an idea of the diversity of things you can find at a single sale and a reminder that vintage items can still be found out there.

The phone rang at 7:00 a.m. this morning.  It was my mother-in-law.  Usually the combination of those two things would mean something bad happened.  But in this case, she had news of a garage sale across from her house in Lemay.  It's an older neighborhood and the family had been in the house for many years, so it sounded promising.

My wife and I headed over and while she visited with her parents, I crossed the street to the sale.

The first thing I spotted was a Mego Farrah Fawcett doll.

East St. Louis Elf

I had to work a 30 hour shift this weekend starting Friday morning and lasting until noon on Saturday.  I was pretty tired driving home, but not tired enough to not stop at an estate sale in Oakville.  The saling force is strong in this one.

Being afternoon, I was a little late for the sale, but still found a few interesting items.  This elf I picked up for $2 was one.

His label is pretty worn, but you can still read what it says: "Souvenir of East St. Louis, Ill."

These days the only souvenir you might pick up in East St. Louis is a case of the clap or a cap in your...er...well, you get the idea.

Merry Kitschmas

I found this load of Christmas kitsch in the same bag at the same estate sale where I bought the Motorola television.  In fact they're assembed on that same television in my living room now.  I find comfort in supposing they're being displayed on the same piece of furniture they originally were.

The Elf of the Shelf is Watching You!

This past fall, I found this in a box of 25 cent items.  At first, I passed on him, but then I went back.  Although I initially found him scary, his kitchiness won me over.  Although it was still prior to Halloween, I set him up on our shelf.

Then came the commercials for Elf on the Shelf.  I couldn't resist singing the song to my kids and replacing the lyric "...each and every Christmas" with the lyric, "...watching you be bad!"  The older kids found it funny, but my two youngest are sincerely disturbed by it.  They've become very distrustful of the elf.  It could be the cocky pose in which I've placed him.  He looks down arrogantly upon us.  "Why is he watching me?" my 2-year-old asked just a few minutes ago.  I explained the candy vs coal scenario after which she assured me she preferred candy.  My 5-year-old  despises him.  Freakish gnome, daring to rat him out to the big man. I can understand his hatred of the elf -- out of the family, he probably runs the highest risk of being reported .   If the elf ever disappears, I'll know who to blame.

As for the Elf of the Shelf website, it's unwieldly at best.  And it took a significant amount of time to dredge down to the reason for its existence (which oddly isn't explained in the commercials).  It's a promotion for a children's book which I haven't even seen in the book stores (and I was just in the children's section of a Barnes & Noble several days ago).