My Christmas Mantel (Sort Of)

OK, so I don't really have a mantel. We have a wood burning stove, but I am going to count it as my mantel. Sort of the same thing - they both have wood involved.

I have a lot of vintage items that I decorate with for the Holidays, some that I inherited from my Mom and some that I have bought over the years.

This is my Mother's NOEL candle holders.

They have paper labels that say Japan on the back of them, but don't have a maker's mark. I think they are from the 1950's and from the design of them, they look like they could have been made by Lefton or Napcoware.

They have a quaint holly and berry design to them

and are candle holders, but for very thin candles.

Santa climbing out of the chimney is a bobble head bank made by Ucagco. Strangely enough I always thought this was from my Mom's childhood (which would have been the 20's and 30's), but when I Googled this item to get a more precise date I found that it was made in the early 1960's, which would make him from my childhood. So he's actually quite young!

I bought this Santa at an antique mall a long, long time ago. He's made from paper mache and I've been told he was a candy container from the 1940's.

I also have this exact same Santa which was my Mother's and always stood under our tree at Christmas when I was little. That one had an unfortunate encounter with my childhood dog though and he lost his legs in the skirmish, so when I saw this intact Santa at the antique mall I had to have him.

This hard plastic Santa is one of my favorite pieces. I bought him on eBay a few years ago. He's a light up Santa, but I never seem to put him close enough to an electrical outlet, so I just took the cord out of his back for now.

This Christmas bouquet is covering up an ugly orange medallion on the stove door.

Not sure why I had to tell you that, but it's the truth. If you want to see how ugly it is you can go to this post HERE where I show it to you.

In case you're wondering, we never actually light a fire in the wood stove (the wood in the copper boiler is just for looks). We had a bad experience with it when we first moved into the house and now I'm chicken to try it again. We didn't set the house on fire or anything, but it did get quite smokey in here and thoughts of dialing 911 were going on.