Pour Votre Bouche Immonde

I found these slightly bawdy cocktail napkins at an estate sale a few weeks ago.  They're similar to the Chuckle Naps I blogged about here.  

They are called "Fractured French" and are actually reprints from a book of the same name written by Fred Pearson 2nd and illustrated by New Yorker magazine artist Richard Taylor.  They are from 1950.

Each gag is a silly re-interpretation of a French phrase.  You have to sound them out phonetically to get the joke.

The Twelve Days of Santa - Day... 13?

Think of it as a "baker's dozen".  Here's a bonus Santa Claus I found at the same sale as yesterday's.  I believe this is also a Harold Gale Santa.

And to All, a Good Night!

The Twelve Days of Santa - Day 12

Good day and welcome to day 12.  It's Christmas Eve and I hope everyone's been a good boy or girl.  If not, it's too late.  Better luck next year.

This past fall, I attended the annual Gramond Street neighborhood garage sale.  The size and participants in the sale have declined in the past few years, but it's an old neighborhood and I almost always manage to score at least one good item.  This year was no exception.

While working my way through a long line at a sale, I could see what was clearly a vintage Santa Claus  across the table from me.  It looked homemade, but I liked it and my anxiety increased as each person in front of me stopped to look at it.  Fortunately, everyone passed on it and I was able to grab it.  It was priced at $5.  When I picked it up, Santa moved and seeing an electric cord, I knew it was mechanical.  And he's very large, standing at 2 foot tall and 2 foot wide.

March of the Toy Soldiers

I don't know why toy soldiers have long been associated with Christmas and apparently the internet doesn't know either.  The closest guess anyone comes to is their link to "The Nutcracker" and it's "March of Toy Soldiers".

At any rate, Christmas is what I thought of when I saw these plastic blow mold soldiers.

The cannon can (or used to be) fired by slamming your fist down on the back of it, or squeezing the sides of it, which launched the yellow plastic "cannonball".  I would guess the object was to line up the soldiers and knock them down by shooting them with their own cannon.  Seems unsporting.

The Twelve Days of Santa - Day 11

Today's Day of Santa features record albums sporting Santa in his many guises from Bing Crosby to Colonel Sanders to The Pink Panther.  I have a fairly large record collection from sales over the years and Christmas is probably the biggest genre in it.

Merry Christmas from Vandervoort's

I found this promotional Christmas record for Vandervoort's Department store at a sale this past summer.  It promises music and a Greeting from the Jolly Man himself.