Wednesday, December 13, 2017

A little vintage mystery


In my cleaning and sorting, I'm finding many treasures as well as a lot of trash.  Often I wonder just why this or that was carefully saved.  The items I'm sharing today are a case in point.  There was a small cedar chest that had been on a bookshelf in my parents' living room for as long as I can remember.  I think my mother told us she had received it as a girl from a friend of their family, and that her three sisters had also received cedar chests at that time.

One of the things in the box was the Santa sticker at the top of the post.  Then there were two more stickers (only I think they called them "seals" back then), one of them still attached to pretty, very fancy green ribbon.  There was a very long piece of ribbon and it was carefully folded around all three stickers. 


I'm not sure why these trims were saved so carefully.  They obviously had been part of the wrappings for a very special gift.  My guess, though it may be inaccurate, is that they had trimmed the gift-wrapped cedar chest and that it had been a Christmas gift.  What do you think?

4 comments:

  1. Good guess! I think even more importantly than how they were used might be what about them appealed to your mother. She obviously enjoyed beautiful and traditional colors and images of Christmas.

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    1. Yes, she did. My mother loved Christmas and loved decorations that were a bit different yet traditional. She also baked for days to give kitchen gifts to friends and neighbors.

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  2. I was going to add that my mother also had a small cedar chest. She told me that it was a gift from the Lane Company and was a “sample” of their line of cedar chests. All the girls in her graduating class received one. Believe me, I grew up hoping for a Hope Chest like it when I graduated. Ha! I use my grandmother’s cedar hope chest as a side table for my rather deep sofa. Did you have a Hope Chest of your own? I did not.

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    1. I did not have a Hope Chest of my own. But, I did get one of those miniature cedar chests like your mother had from the Lane company. All of the girls in my graduating class received them from a local furniture store. They were still giving these out when my sister graduated in 1976!

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