Labor Day Weekend Tent Sale

It’s time for our annual sidewalk tent sale, Saturday, September 5th,  through Monday, September 7th.  It’s a great time to snap up bargains on clearance and scratch-and-dent merchandise for decorating and gift giving.  There is always a wide assortment of goodies from every department in the store, including ornaments and floral stems.

Last year, it was a beautifully sunny day ~ and people were shopping faster than we could load the goods into the tent!  We’ll be selling on the sidewalk from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Monday.

As always, our motto for the tent sale is “shop early, shop often!”  Hope to see you there.

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Christmas Place Ornament Sale!

Christmas Place is in the midst of a great sale – buy 3 ornaments, get the fourth free (equal or lesser value, some restrictions apply, etc.)!  You can mix and match between ornaments, and personalized ornaments are included.

Hop on over to the store site and take a look at all the ornaments that are included.  (well, it’s that close to Easter, isn’t it??)

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Two for Tuesday

I enjoy the whimsical things in life, and these animal ornaments fit right in when I noticed the little tags they bear – oink, moo, and baa.  That just makes me laugh!

Down on the Farm Ornaments

And now for something totally elegant…a handsome deer pair with stylized metal antlers, decorated with holly and carved seasonal landscapes.

Deer Figurines

Aren’t they extraordinary??

We’re having a cold, sunny day here – I have hesitated to mention the snow on the mountains because ours is mostly beautiful when so many others were snowed under this week.  I’ll have some pictures to share tomorrow, nonetheless – you’ll enjoy.

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Breaking News – Egyptian Glass Signing this Saturday!

This Saturday, November 1st, the founders of the Egyptian Museum company, Linda Paul and Mohamed Abdelhameed, will be in the store from 2 to 5 pm, signing their exquisite cut-glass creations.

Here is a picture of one piece from their line, which is quite extensive – unfortunately, we only offer a handful of their collection in our on-line catalog.  In the store, we have dozens of styles of ornaments, urns, finials, perfume jars, eggs, and more.  Photos can hardly do justice to these delicate crystal pieces with their cut-glass designs, luminescent finishes, and golden highlights.  The glass comes in a wide variety of colors, from clear to pink, purple, golden, red, blue, smoke, and more.

The Egyptian Glass line is manufactured in Egypt from German glass and paints, highlighted with 24kt gold.  Certain styles are accented with Asfour Crystal, a 33% lead crystal manufactured in Egypt.  Moe and Linda design most of the items, and add new pieces each year.

These unique creations add grace and elegance to any setting.  Be sure to come by the store this weekend to meet Linda & Moe and purchase a hand-signed piece or two for yourself.

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Two for Tuesday

The designers have created an adorable Christmas tree that is loaded with Delft ornaments, the blue and white style associated with Delft in the Netherlands – our tree is filled with bunches of white tulips, is sporting a windmill in the top, and is adorned with dozens of charming ornaments you can see here.  Near the tree I found a collection of amazing angel musical figurines reminiscent of the Delft style, including this lovely lady with a Christmas wreath on her arm.  There are several musical and non-musical figurines in this collection.  Notice the exquisite detail work in the banding on her gown and the image lining her coat.

I haven’t shown a snowman in awhile, so I’m sneaking in this cute little pillow that just came in – we have a big selection of styles and sizes of pillows, even some collegiate logo versions.  This one would be so welcoming tucked into a chair next to the fireplace.

Have a cozy evening!

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Two for Tuesday

This is it.  I give up.  I am surrendering to the inevitable and changing this post to “However many I feel like for Tuesday” – with all the new items now hitting the sales floor, it is hard to limit myself to just two!  I don’t want to!  You can’t make me!

The design team is staging a new tree just about each day now, and I can no longer resist the desire to try to include a picture of a full tree.  Please look closely at this and try to make it out as best you can, because it is adorable.  Gorgeous, natural woodland theme, and I was caught this morning by a very serious-looking polar bear made of wood and carrying a wooden trout.  He is tucked in behind some chesnuts, copper leaves, and a star-shaped tree toper made of willow branches stuffed with nuts and seed pods.  He’s about halfway down, just left of center, below a tree stump.  Yes, they even put a tree stump in the tree, just above the fence rail.  Yes, a fence rail, down which are tumbling a series of “Santa Gnomes”.

The tree is loaded with ornaments made of natural materials, including owls, pheasants, snowmen, bears, and more.  There are also gleaming blown glass ornaments, resin characters, and all sorts of adornments – it takes more than a bit of exploration to absorb all the elements they have tucked into this tree.  While I was attempting to photograph the tree, I talked with a guest who said she thought it should be staged for display in her governor’s mansion!  Are you listening, Gov. Joe Manchin III, D, West Virginia?  We’ll be happy to send this along to your estate.  Even your constituent’s husband, a non-decorative-fussy kind of guy, would love this tree, says our guest.

Here are a few close-ups:

Serious Polar bear with fish

I am undecided - is this "Santa, I've been very good!" or is it "But I love the cookies!"

Forest Frosty!

Mischevious Santa Gnome

Hoo-s looking for presents under my tree?

Snowy Pals

Now you begin to perceive the depths of my frustration with photography and the challenge of doing verbal justice to the visual feasts throughout the store!  It is decided.  You will have to come in person to experience the wonder of each tree.  I haven’t even talked about the nativity tree yet, or the snowman tree, or the musical tree or the….anticipation!

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Two for Tuesday

We carry the cutest collection of these little Smores ornaments – for the teacher, the chef, Baby’s First Christmas, with a stocking ~ even Halloween ~ there’s one dressed as a ghost!  Here’s a really popular style for newlyweds.  These little darlin’s are only about two inches tall.

You’ll also find a complete selection of musical instruments to decorate the tree.  Here’s a showy set of drums, and you can get a single snare style, too.  Shop for banjos, a whole range of guitars, fiddles – well, maybe they are violins, it’s hard to say – pianos, and your complete brass section as well.

 

 

Happy Tuesday!

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

Two for Tuesday

Here are some really neat ornaments I found in the store today, great for honoring service men and women - we personalize these free of charge (while you wait if you’re in the store).  Although we traditionally celebrate fallen soldiers on Memorial Day, I find myself thinking of active and former service members, too.  We have several styles of military ornaments, including more formal glass ornaments like this.

 

Okay, I’m so not sure about this – would we go with “Rudolph’s Revenge”??  Over in Santaland, I found a tree decorated for sportsmen, with fishermen, fishing lures, shotgun shells, hunting and fishing ornaments, and a couple of rifle-totin’ reindeer like this plucky fellow!  What a hoot!

Have a great day!

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

I get to watch the Indy 500 live this year!!

Memorial Day Weekend is almost here, and I’m so very excited to be living in a city this year from which I can watch the Indy 500 race live on t.v. for the first time in a couple of decades!  For a glitter girl, I do love to watch the Indy cars go fast, really REALLY FAST.  Too fast to see if they’ve been glittered at all.

When you actually live in Indy, and don’t have friends with a big screen t.v. in the next viewing market over, mere mortals like me have to wait for the taped replay (after listening to the radio broadcast).  Actually, I always tape the replay so I can run the wrecks as often as I like.  The race itself can run in as little as three hours, if the weather is good and the drivers are safe (where’s the fun??).

Of course, if you’re willing to battle the crowds (larger even than the entire population of the nation of Iceland) and attend in person, it is The. Biggest. RUSH. you will EVER. FEEL.  except maybe a space shuttle flight or possibly one of those drop-out-of-a-helo-with-a-parachute-and-ski-to-the-bottom trips.  But you don’t need as much gear, just some sodas and sunscreen and a seat cushion and an umbrella and sandwiches and money and a program and a camera and a radio and money and a hat and sunglasses and chapstick and money and band-aids and money and you might want a roll of toilet paper just to be on the safe side if you’re “a delicate flower”.

My first race was 22 years ago, seats in the second turn at the top of the short shute, about 12 rows from the fence.  Thank you for the fence.
Dum, de dum, celebrity goes around in the pace car.
Dum, de dum, some wailing music for a number or two by the underfed vocalist of the year.
Dum, de dum, Jim Nabors sings “Back Home Again in Indiana.”
Dum, de dum, “gentlemen, start your engines.”
Dum, de dum, pace laps, cars go weaving by (they warm up their tires that way) and gradually form into rows.
And then, HOLY COW, the green flag!

You’re on your feet for at least the first 10 laps ( no kidding, my heart is speeding up even now just thinking about that first green lap!) as the cars go by in a blur.  You don’t know fast until you’ve been 30 feet from a car passing at 200 miles an hour.  Whew, what a rush!  It’s not quite Mach, but it sure takes a few laps for your eyes to able to see the cars as they speed by.  As fast as you can focus on one, it’s gone.  Then there are red flags, and yellow flags, and rain delays, and sunburn, and drunks.  And then, after 200 laps on the 2.5 mile track, there’s a winner.  All this takes about 5 hours.

And then, there is 45 minutes of walking to the car (if you’re lucky), followed by four hours in the parking lot trying to leave the track, followed by an hour and a half on the interstate to get home.  That’s when you forget about the rush of that first green flag lap and think to yourself “I’m not coming again until I can helo into the infield!”

Once back on the couch in the air conditioning, though, you’re sitting there, watching it all over again on t.v., heart pounding, wishing it wasn’t a full year until the race is back in town again!  Only 11 months and three weeks more until we’re all back “on the bubble” with the next 33 cars and drivers…

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

I’m not tailgating, you’re driving too close to my front bumper.

Frustration!

::frustration:: … is that we have the most stunning trees, wreaths, garlands, and decorations around here … and I have so far found it impossible to take pictures that effectively show their beauty and class …  I’m going to make you look at these anyway, but just imagine them a bajillion times better in real life, rich colors, elegant designs, whimsical light strands and all.  The trees (some of which are still under construction – we are getting in container-loads of new design materials these days) are so loaded with ornamentation there is no way to capture the full effect digitally, so I went in close on a variety of items I found tucked amoung branches.

       

I hope you can tell from these snaps how we load our trees – and the best part is that we generally provide a full kit list for each decorated tree, so you can purchase the whole enchilada and recreate it in your own home or office!

Now, here’s a staggering picture of strands of garland laden with clusters of lighted grapes and filled with birds’ nests, pussywillows, berries, and greens, reaching up to a regal wreath suspended nine feet above.  See why I say photographs really cannot do justice to the work of our professional designers and decorators?

Here are a couple of close-ups that capture the details (and source of my frustration) a little better.

 

Ya gotta come in and see for yourself!

Happy Almost Monday,

~Janet @ The Christmas Place

coming next week…decorating the tree with weasels, ducks, frogs, pandas, flamingos, buffalos, and more ~ and it all works!