Floss Among the Dross

The day after Thanksgiving, Boy and I drove across the Hudson River in search of vintage Christmas ornaments to add to our collection.  Our destination was a large and rather seedy group shoppe in one of the near-forgotton, near-abandoned towns that line the river's western banks.

We've had good luck finding pretty, old-fashioned ornaments at the shoppe in the past.  The first time we visited it, a dozen or so years ago, we came away with an avalanche of attractive and unusually shaped vintage ornaments.  Over the years, though, the shoppe's ornament pickings have become increasingly slim, with fewer and fewer attractive vintage ones to be found among the ugly, modern plastic Christmas junk that appears in the shoppe's booths from Thanksgiving onwards.

This visit, however, we despaired that we would find any vintage ornaments worth buying at all.  Although there were some plain round vintage ones to be found, we weren't interested in adding any more of them to our collection, since we already have more plain round ones than we could ever use.  No, we were on the hunt for interestingly shaped vintage blown-glass ornaments.

It was only in the final minute of our troll through the shoppe that Boy found two ornaments—shown in this essay's photograph—that met our collecting standards.  That one of them was shaped like a pine-cone was a particular joy, as Boy specifically collects that form.  He scooped them both up and we happily brought them back to Darlington House where they will most assuredly soon hang on the Christmas tree we plan on putting up this weekend.

Tell me, Dear Reader, do you also collect vintage Christmas ornaments?  If so, is there a particular shape or type that you focus on?

Photograph by Boy Fenwick