Collecting - Santas

Thursday, December 18, 2025

I've been collecting American Santas for a while. I set them out recently. 

It felt like I was missing some. 

I don't usually set them out on this shelf so maybe that's what looked different. 

Anyway, not too long after setting them out I found another box in the coal room where I store most of my Christmas stuff. That's where they had been hiding. 

I added them to the display. 

Mom never promoted the Santa with us when we were kids. When I asked her why she said it had something to do with Dr. Benjamin Spock in the 60s and that you shouldn't have kids focus on fairy tales. Anyway I think that the fact I still ended up believing shows the power of how prevelent the Santa Claus myth is in the culture. 

Collecting - Fiestaware

 Thursday, November 27, 2025

I've been collecting Fiestaware for the past 35 years although I haven't bought any in quite a number of years. After all, you can only have so much. I've heard.

My most recent aquisitions were bought about 10 years ago. 

I bought three place settings in distinctive fall colors. 

They look particularly good when mixed and matched. 

The fourth place setting is pieced together with fall-like colors from my regular collection. 

Mom and Dale at Thanksgiving dinner. 

From Wikipedia: "Fiesta is a line of ceramic glazed dinnerware manufactured and marketed by the Fiesta Tableware Company of Newell, West Virginia, United States since its introduction in 1936, with a hiatus from 1973 to 1985. Fiesta is noted for its Art Deco styling and its range of often bold, solid colors."

"The company was known as the Homer Laughlin China Company (HLCC) until 2020, when it sold its food service divisions, along with the Homer Laughlin name, to Steelite, a British tableware manufacturer. HLCC in turn rebranded itself as the Fiesta Tableware Company, retaining its retail division, prominent Fiesta line, factories and headquarters in Newell, West Virginia."

"Fiesta's original shapes and glazes were designed by Frederick Hurten Rhead, Homer Laughlin's art director from 1927 until his death in 1942. Fiesta products before 1986 were semi-vitreous pottery, and after 1986 were vitreous china allowing marketing it for food service applications. Several of the original shapes had to be modified due to this change in material and other new shapes were added by Jonathan O. Parry, who became Homer Laughlin's art director in 1984."

Collecting: Black Cats

 Monday, October 6, 2025

The black cats are now out. I pulled them from storage in the basement coal room this morning. 

Black cats were represented in some of the decorations we had for Halloween as kids so there's nostalgia involved in my collecting them.

However, I also just love cats.

Having pets makes life better in my opinion. 

Every cat or dog I've ever had has been such an amazing creature so every reminder of them brings me a lot of joy. 

Collecting: Decorative Pumpkins

Friday, October 3, 2025

I have a number of collections. More thanI probably should but I enjoy them. Early October is when I often start 

Early October is when I often start hauling out the ceramic pumpkins. 

I couldn't get the lid on the pumpkin on the left to sit correctly. I thought maybe I mismatched one top and one bottom when I packed them up last year but to my surprise all the other ones fit just right. 

I'll also mix in other real pumpkins and other gourds to decorate. 

I enjoy having many collections as I think things in groups make a stronger statement than just a single object. More than one of the same type of item allows them all to highlight each other by showing contrasts and differences. Many of my collections are related to the holidays so October is when my pumpkin collection begins to appear. The jack-o-lanterns will come out next but I usually pack those back up after Halloween. However the pumpkins will remain until very early December. 

There are numerous reasons why people collect things. For myself I believe my collections, especially my holiday ones,  offer a sense of nostalgia and connection to past happy memories. 

When I go shopping I believe there's always the chance of possibly coming across an item which might fit into one of my collections. I love  the potential thrill of discovering something that's particularly beautiful and unique. 

There is also the act of organizing and curating by collections which provides a sense of control and accomplishment for me. It also offers me a sense of security in what often feels to be an increasingly dangerous and chaotic world. 

I don't set up a bad display. Most are pretty decent if I do say so myself.

Carving pumpkins is an early and fond Halloween memory for me. Whenever I cut open a pumpkin now the smell immediately bring me back to the kitchen floor of the house on Stevens. Mom or Dad would cut the top out of the pumpkin and the destinctive smell would hit me. My job was to help scrape out the goop. 

I've always wondered how that scent related memory is felt so vividly. According to AI, "Our sense of smell, or olfaction, is profoundly connected to memory because of its unique and direct neural pathway to the brain's emotional and memory centers. Unlike other senses, olfactory signals do not first pass through the thalamus, the brain's main relay station for sensory information. This allows smells to trigger vivid, emotionally charged memories more immediately and powerfully than visual or auditory cues."