Have Yourself A Sentimental Christmas

It's about the time of the season that I get a little weary of all the decorating excitement. The saturation, I mean. Sort of past the honeymoon phase, if you will. But never completely! LOL!

It's a roller coaster ride isn't it? There is so much involved with it, and a big mixed bag like all that stuff carried on Santa's shoulder. A good metaphor for all of us I think. I mean so many carry the weight of Christmas in all its forms and meanings and obligations. And always so full of nostalgia.

Folks who love vintage are all about "a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past" as the definition states. I know I am. Especially at Christmas. Like a good movie that makes you cry no matter how many times you see it, I'm going to be reaching for all the charm that gives me that special feeling.

I need a softer Christmas this year with less stuff and more people, and definitely more place for happy personal associations. Those of the past, and those present, like the traditional Dickens story. 

Getting there can be so easy! You just let go, the way you did the year you had a baby at Christmas, or the one you lost a loved one, or the year that you were sick. Christmas always welcomes you. Come as you are.

One of my easy Christmas comforts is found in revisiting my favorite stories. I have let go of some of my lesser favorites, but I once amassed a pretty large Christmas book collection. I am a word person, and also very visual, so books are a natural pleasure. My Mother has been long gone, but one of my strongest early memories of her was her reading voice as she made stories come alive from the page. It was so unlike the way she sounded otherwise, which must have fascinated me as a young child, and it will never leave me.

This wonderful volume is the story of how Clement Moore wrote The Night Before Christmas as told by his great-great-granddaughter.

Complete with a sample of his own hand. 

And still available in different editions, though some say this one, the original from 2001, is the best.

And speaking of Dickens, I have many versions of A Christmas Carol now, but this keepsake is the first one I got for Christmas when I was nine years old. It's quite small, about 5 by 8 inches, and shows no copyright date. Illustrated by Donald McKay.

I love gifting and selling vintage nostalgia too.

These adorable Scotties make me wonder what summer and winter looked like in the collection!

And I recently came across this very familiar framed print of The Angelus by Millet at some vintage market. Can it ever help but remind us of our humbler times? Or folks who now themselves are living very humble times?

As you may already know, linens also never fail to bring me joy and connect me to the beauty found in old handmade things from the past.

I wanted to think of a project for these lovely old child's stockings that some of us once wore as children. But that will wait yet another year.

These new vintage laces may find themselves a place at my table, or sent to the shop for someone else to find.

For truly, a vintage shop is the only place I ever hear shoppers reminisce so much about their mothers and fathers and grandmothers, and the lives they remember. So I rest my case about vintage things and sentimental longing.

May your memories fill you full of peace and Christmas joy.

Heartache and all.

Jacqueline