New Year, New Ramble

Happy 2017, Everyone!  I hope you had your black eyed peas and cabbage and are looking forward to a prosperous and healthy new year.

I'm just going to a do a real quickie update here to talk about the holidays a bit and get back in the groove.  I have a lot of pics and stories to share, plus some finds, but I'll save those for another day.  I've gotten behind on my blog reading again, so I'm trying to carve out some time for that as well.

We're expecting snow tonight and tomorrow, so I plan on staying in if it happens.  I have some cartoons ready to watch, plus a couple of documentaries on YouTube.  I'll catch up on some reading, laundry, blogs, blogging, and pricing too.  Maybe a nap as well.  And hot chocolate.  And pie.  Maybe popcorn too.

Of course, now that I have all that planned, it'll be 76 tomorrow and brightly sunny.  Oh well.  If that happens, I guess I'll go to the booth.  I'm heading there as soon as I finish writing and posting this.  I haven't been over there since the Friday before Christmas.  I finished the bulk of my work and decided I wanted a holiday break.

I had a very good month in December, booth-wise, which was most welcome after a weak fall.  I had more $100+ days in December than I had in the months of September, October and November.  It seems to be holding for the first few days of January, but I'm going to work some magic to keep that going.  Mazda is packed to the gills with new stuff to go over.

One of the things I have to do today is pack up the Christmas, which will free up about five shelving units for new stuff.   I'll leave the vintage Christmas in the booth, but make a new section for it.  It will sell throughout the year.  I'll probably make a shelf for Christmas books and music too, just to keep from lugging that heavy stuff out.

I also need to make room for some more furniture.  I have a load ready to come off the Hillock, but just need a spot for it.  I've sold several larger items recently,  so I just need to reconfigure things to make the space.  Our next junk set out happens in a month, so I need to get ready for that by moving more large items.

Christmas sales always confound me.  After two years of low sales on wrapping paper and Christmas cards, I sold all I had this year.  Wreaths and small trees usually sell very well for me.  I sold one of each this time around.  Last year, I sold no ornament sets.  This year, I sold 3/4's of my stock.  It's always a riddle.  The only things I know I can count on are blow molds and vintage flocked deer.  I sold every blow mold I had except for one, and all the reindeer.  That was almost ten blow molds and about a dozen deer.

Speaking of Christmas, ours was really low key.  We decided not to get each other any gifts, in lieu of buying a new mattress, which we really needed.  We didn't even cook.  We had lunch at Waffle House and dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  In an odd way, that was, for us, kind of traditional.  Waffle House was a my father's favorite restaurant and the place where he would have his own holiday meals.  In the days before we bought the house, Keith and I would take a vacation over Christmas, usually to San Francisco or New York or Chicago.  That always meant we ended up eating out at either an Indian or Chinese place on Christmas Day, since they were the places most likely to be open.  When we got married in Chicago two years ago, we revived the tradition of the Chinese food Christmas meal.

By the way, we celebrated our anniversary Christmas Eve with Mexican food and then watched the wonderful Christmas concert recorded at Berea College (my alma mater) on CBS.  Like I said, it was low key, but wonderful.  I had been working at the booth practically every day all month long, so it was a nice to have a simple holiday.

New Years was celebrated with the traditional visit to the Big Flea.  More on that later.

And now the holidays are over.  Time to get back to work.  And blogging.

Here's to a good 2017 for all of us.  Big, wonderful, sloppy, happy hugs!

PS Don't forget to go to the thrifts this week!  They're still awash with year-end last minute donations!  And Christmas clearances should be up to 75% or even 90% off now.