Modern Purveyors of Vintage-Christmas Candy Binge From The Vermont Country Store

I think we can all agree Holiday time is candy time:

And if you are a committed vintage-file like me you want even your Christmas candy to have a vintagey vibe.  Fortunately, the perfect source exists, The Vermont Country store.

Their catalog is chock-a-block with old school candies you can't find anywhere else and my husband's aunt has been to the actual stores massive candy room.

Vintage Candy Heaven

This year I gave holiday baking a pass, and instead ordered oodles of candy from the Vermont country store.  There where so many options in the catalog that it was very, very hard to decide but I selected four varities to order.

1)  Bendick's Bittermints:

Warning: For serious mint lovers only!  Remember that old York Peppermint Patty get the sensation commercial:

Well it should have been for Bittermints!  I love them but they are super minty.  Bendick's is a British company founded in the 1930s and famed for their almost bitter dark chocolate, the mint's are encased in it.  It is still widely available in England but tough to find in the USA.

Cost $22.95 eek! for one box

2) Orton's Fudge

I've always loved fudge and I feel like good quality fudge is hard to come by.  This is supposed to be old school  copper kettle fudge and I was pretty excited.  It was by no means bad, but it didn't quite live up to my expectations.  I did really love the maple walnut flavor and the chocolate walnut was great too.   I just wasn't crazy about the penuche flavor and I have had better fudges from craft markets and such.

Cost: $22.95 for 1.5 lb sample box

3) Giant Gum Drops:

You know when you have a childhood memory of something and then the adult revisitation of it just doesn't live up to expectations, thats how I feel about these spice drops.  I have clear memories of loving these as a kid, but as an adult I only really enjoyed the licorice drops.  I still  ate quite a few and they are tasty, and a testament to the addictive nature of sugar.

Cost $12.95 for 1.5 lb bag

4) Merrimints:

These are by far my favorites.   I love everything abut this candy from the adorable mid century packaging to the pretty colors of the fondant slices to the super minty flavor.  These old school candies come in cinnamon, spearmint, and mint flavors and are usually pastel colored but for Christmas they come in traditional red, white, and green.  Merri-mints where popular in the 50s and then the company was bought by Sara Lee in the 1968 and they disappeared for a bit.  However, recently candy purveyors like the Vermont Country Store have resurrected them.   After one taste I am now a life long fan.

Cost $24.95 for one box, price for sure but they are impossible to find elsewhere

We Met Santa!

This weekend we met Santa!

Sadly he didn't arrive in a cool 1950s car.  He was at the Staten Island Pet Smart.

First we visited Grandpa in Bay Ridge

We didn't bring Bob because we know he is not too crazy about his Uncle Rocco, not pictured, a puggle.  After visiting Grandpa we drove through Staten Island to see the big guy, sadly the NJ pet smart has stopped having a live Santa and our local pet store that used to do photos closed.  So Pet Smart it was, and it was packed!  The line wrapped around the store and I was reminded of my favorite Christmas Story, Santa Land Diaries by David Sedaris, if you haven't read or listened to it you must!   Here is the link to the transcript and recording.

Anyway, I was relived we hadn't brought Bob because he would never have tolerated the line and there was a huge pet adoption event too, I was glad about that because we where able to make a donation.  The line was filled with cute dogs so it was fun.

My favorite was a tiny chihuahua puppy, you can barely see him on his mom's shoulder here:

I got to hold him and should have taken a photo then but I was seriously overwhelmed!  He was so tiny and cute.  He weighed 1.5 lbs and was 14 weeks old.  He made Tuvok look huge.  His mom said he should get to be between 3.5 and 4 lbs fully grown which is a healthy weight for a chihuahua, I've done research.  Why anyone on Earth would want an even smaller dog is beyond me but they do!  Someday I will have a chihuahua from a reputable Chihuahua club of America breeder.   

Anyway we finally reached the end of the line and there was Santa.  Santa was very nice but the photo elf was kind of rude.  

The pictures I too with my phone where better then the pet smart digital downloads and they didn't even give you a print out!  That really dissapointed me because I have all the old Santa photos with our past pets displayed in the house.  Here is a photo of our rescue pug Bingo form eight years ago.  We adopted him after moving to NJ.  He had cancer and was incontinent and had to use a stroller but he lived almost two years!  He was such a sweet old guy.

 I really wanted to be able to display Santa photos  of Weasley Fry and Tuvok on our mantle along with our old dogs.  Oh well. 

Happy Holidays!

My Dream Party-Cinema Spotlight on Star Trek The Original Series Journey to Babel

Now despite the title of the post I actually hate parties.   I'm extremely shy and rather socially awkward and basically my ideal of hell is a cocktail party filled with people unfamiliar to me.  Even family parties make me nervous.  However, I love looking at vintage pictures of Holiday parties.  The more pedestrian the party the better.

These people look quite happy, or at least tipsy.

I love the tinsel on the tree here.

The dress on the girl on the left is just divine.

I love this guys shirt or whatever it is he is wearing.

However, there is only one party I'd like to attend and it is a fictional one, and unsurprisingly it is from the Star Trek universe.

I mean how fabulous is this party!

The episode is one from the original series second season, Journey to Babel, it aired in 1967 and the fabulous colorful kitschiness of the 60s is all over it.  The plot involves the Enterprise hosting a gathering of alien diplomats, including Spock's father, not all of whom have benign intentions.  The story is clever and well done, but what  I love most about the episode is the costume and set design.  William Ware Theiss, Star Trek's first costume designer, who I wrote about here, outdid himself in this episode.  

Usually Theiss's designs where emblematic of the swinging 60s and rather skimpy, focusing viewer attention on ample amounts of alien skin, but as this episode basically deals with an intergalactic U.N. summit the costumes are more covered up and Theiss had lots of fun with fabrics, colors, and trims.   I love every single outfit!

The Vulcans are very covered up and regal.  Lady Amanda Spock's human mother arrives in a vest over some sort of 60s column dress with a huge stand up collar.  My favorite touch is the elbow length gloves.   I also love Sarek's, Spock's vulcan father, military inspired tunic.

Sarek has some nice brocade on his party outfit:

But being a Vulcan it's still for Star Trek at least a rather subdued look.  Lady Amanda being a human gets to have more fun with her clothes.  Like the Vulcan's she is covered up and elegant, but there are plenty of fun touches.  Her party outfit is a psychedelic 60s caftan:

And later she wears a high necked red dress with pink marabou feather trim on the sleeves.

The Vulcan's are just the tip of the costuming ice berg in the episode though.  There is the pig people race, they seem to love shiny fabrics, 

and the little gold people in fezzes. I love the look of the cocktails they are carrying, are those some sort of futuristic gum drop ice cubes?

There are also tons of colorfully costumed extras in the background.  Each more outrageously attired then the last.

The only alien race with slightly boring costumes are the blue skinned Andorians who are wearing chain mail with leather vests.  They are kind of the bad guys of the episode though so maybe Theiss thought they should dress down.  

The Star Fleet dress uniforms on Kirk, Spock and McCoy are my favorite of all the costumes. I love, love, love the gold braid.

The set design in the party scene is also amazing I am obsessed with the psychedelically colored fruit and the brightly colored squares, I guess they are ice cubes?  And the decanters filled with futuristic cocktails.

I even have the perfect outfit to wear to this party if only I could go!  My Mexican Patio Set it even has the gold braid and everything!

Seriously though, I just love this image of a bright, colorful, and diversely costumed future.   So much better then the functional, drab, and boring direction that fashion is heading.  

Around Town: Fry's Trip to the Jersey City Holiday Market

Living  in the city as we do holiday markets are a big thing.  We used to go into Manhattan to the Union Square Holiday Market, but now there is no need too.  As legions of New Yorkers have been priced out of Manhattan and the boroughs, they have crossed the river to NJ and Jersey City, where we live, is becoming the 6th borough.  This has meant a glut of new restaurants and stores and events.  One cool new thing is Project Market,  a bi-monthly outdoor market with food vendors and artists.  

This past weekend Project Market had their biggest market of the year, the Holiday market.  We biked down town with Fry in his basket to check it out.  Fry is currently our best bicycling dog and I really should have gotten a picture of him on the bike.   (Incidentally we have been seriously considering going car free which would mean investing in some different pet bike trailers for the other dogs.  We rarely drive and I love the idea of being car free, except for occasional rentals, if we can figure out how to manage it. Luckily we are two blocks from our vet.  Not only is biking it better for the environment, it saves money, and is great exercises.  My husband is really passionate about biking.)

Fry after his  bike ride.

The market was pretty big and Fry was maybe a little overwhelmed.

We tried S'mores hot chocolate with a gingersnap cookie rim and fried Wisconsin cheese curds.   I didn't get a picture of the curds but they were delicious.

There were tons of stands, more then I could photograph:

My favorite stand was unsurprisingly, the vintage one.  They had a cute collection of vintage valentine cards:

 and some fun poodle things,   I bought the 1950s poodle book ends.

The one thing the market was missing was dog treats!  I was pretty disapointed.  We made it up to Fry by giving him part of a donut from the Italian bakery, so he was happy.

All in all we had a great time at the market, and I love my new book ends.

Winter Wonderland-A Vintage Outfit Post

Which means it is time for one of my favorite holiday traditions, seasonal dressing.  Christmas sweaters, novelty prints, festive jewelry, I love it all.  That is why when I saw the Bernie Dexter Veronique dress in Winter Wonderland print on super sale last May I had to snap it up even if it meant I'd be waiting a looong time to wear it.  This dress has been hanging in my closet for 6 months and I've been itching to wear it, but I'm a stickler for waiting for the right season for an outfit, so I didn't put it on until  Thanksgiving, but Oh My Gosh was it ever worth the wait! I love it!

It makes me feel like I'm living in a snow globe, even if I'm just standing on my grubby urban porch.

The print is just too beautiful

and the cut is very flattering.  I ordered my usual size in Bernie Dexter, large.  It's maybe a little big on me in the waist and chest, but nothing terrible, and I like a bit of wiggle room.

I paired the dress with a 1960s sequin cardigan

and a hair flower from Chatter Blossom.  Jamie made the flower to match the dress and she did a perfect job.

I also added one of my petticoats from Amazon to make the most of the full 50s style skirt and I wore my 1950s style Baby Doll pumps from Remix Vintage Shoes.  These shoes are surprisingly comfortable for high heels.

You may ask where did I wear this fancy Holiday outfit?  The answer no where special.  I've worn it twice so far once to get Bubble tea and once to the movie theatre to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (very good by the way and it has a pug in it!).   I'll definitely keep wearing it.  After all Christmas comes but once a year and we aught to make the most of it!