N is for Nearly the Nativity!

It's the 20th! I don't know where that month went in such a hurry, but it did! I haven't shot any Nativity sets this year, nor have we had a chance to clear any of the unused stuff from last year, or the years before, all sitting down the bottom of Picasa at 1968! But, to prevent anything else joining them, there are still a few bits from this year to get up here, and this is Brian's Nativity finds in a store in New York.

 

The Archangel Gabriel getting busy with Satan! Two sizes.

 

The family shot, then they were off to Egypt as asylum-seeking refugee migrants!

 

OK, got it!

 

But did they pay?

 

13 pieces is a fair count, and beautifully presented in gold silk!

 

Quite a few styles, from the super realistic miniatures through to the mawkishly sentimental cartoonish baby-faced stuff, but nice that you can 'pick and mix' off the shelf, or slowly add items, year to year. Mostly resin, but it looks like some may be china? Many thanks to Brian as always, for sending these into the Blog.

H is for Hairy Horrors!

When I was a kid, Trolls were a simple thing to get your head round, they were slightly larger, toad-skinned goblins who lived under bridges and ate slow, or dim witted goats.

 

Then Tolkien arrived in teenage'hood, with trolls the size of land-tanks who breathed fire, while the Nottingham Mafia and Garry Gygax's D&D monster handbooks, along with dozens of whitemetal manufacturers split Trolls twenty ways, and suddenly they could be large, small, relatively harmless, existentially dangerous to the planet, green, brown, orange or yellow, or anything between!

 

These trolls, the 'Scandi trolls', fill the slightly larger, relatively harmless, goblin niche, I think, but clearly this lot are strangers to the barber's chair!

 

The final tranche of Brian Berke's Icelandic shelfies and he thought the chap with the shield reminded him of Eccles from The Telegoons, while I thought those (red background) reminded me of Michel Bentine's Potty Time, characters which was a sort of second spin-off from The Goons!

 

Many thanks to Brian for all these, they've been a lot of fun!

T is for Tröll sem eru í Treyjasum!

Apologies to any Icelandic Loyal Readers who may have just chocked on their elevenses, for my miserable attempt at a line of Icelandic grammar, and even I know (now) Treyja are really cardigans not jumpers, but sometimes my desire to be a clever-dick outweighs any need to be more sensible!

 

More Trolls from Brian's visit to Iceland, and these are your every-day, regular tröll, not seasonal guys, and it seems even the locals need jumpers to meet the weather in those northern climes! The jumpers themselves are part of the resin moulding, but I think the little woolly hats are actually real, knitted apparel, while, obviously, hatless tröll have too much hair for hats! More on the hair in the final part of Islensku tröll.

N is for November's Sandown Park - Military

More of the odds and sods from the last BP show, at Sandown Park, and it's the military stuff, which wasn't numerous, but had a few interesting items to look at, including one which might surprise you, by my excitement of it!

 

There's a fair bit of brittleness, in the contents of this set, figures and weapons, so at some point, I'll probably de-card it, and save the PVC stuff for spares and scan the card, it's not like the figures are particularly rare, while a full scan of the generic card would be a useful addition to the archive.

 

Two 'Began-Beton's', probably from Plastic Toys Inc.? And one of the small Monogram/Revell copies, along with my first Lido original, I have lots of the Hong Kong copies, but the quality of this original shines through, so very pleased to have found him, rummaging through Gareth's tray.

 

Tourist keepsake for sure, poured-resin, and not the world's best sculpt, but it is a Horse Guard, whom I prefer to the Lifeguards, around 80/90mm, and one assumes not that old, but not current, as I've recently been checking-out the shops round the theatre district for something else, and haven't seen anything close to this chap.

 

Two hollow-cast nurses, and I thought the one on the right might be Crescent, but someone said they are both Britains, early on the left and later on the right, sort of Crimean War and WWI eras?

 

Crescent.

 

Skybirds.

 

Fantasyland? Or the better originals (check tag)?

 

Odds & Sods.

 

John Begg gave me a tray of small-scale. lead shrapnel, which has a few useful bits in, and which, in time, will get sorted into the rest, the Skybirds pilot is particularly nice, as they gave them several paint schemes, both military and civilian, While Crescent used many colours/shades, over the years.

 

In the last shot, the larger-scale, colonial artilleryman, and mid-19th century red-coat, standing firing, are both complete and will join the cards I display this odd, flat stuff on, while the others will probably go in the 'Don't know what to do with them, but can't chuck them' tub!

Y is for Yule Lads!

It's always fun finding out how other people do Christmas, because it's not all the modern iconography of Albert, Prince-consort, The Saxe-Coburg-Windsors or Coke Cola, endured by the English-speaking world, with or without crackers! And I well remember nearly having a fight with Krampus and his 'pals' in an Austrian pension one cold night in December!

 

In Iceland, they have the Yule Lads, a bunch of Icelandic Troll types (more to come on them), who fool about at this time of year, each having a day between the 12th and the 24th, in the lead-up to the big day, almost an half-advent of annoyance! Brian Berke, roving reporter, sent some shots he took in Iceland, and off down the rabbit-hole I went!

 

They actually leave little gifts in children's shoes, the equivalent of our stockings, but lesser, yet daily! However, if you've been bad, you might get a rotten potato, or a sour-onion!

 

This is Pottaskefill (Pot-Scraper, December 16th), he scrapes the food remains from the pots and pans!

 

While Skyrgámur (Skyr-Gobbler, December 19th) loves skyr (Icelandic traditional yogurt-type dairy-produce), and if you don't leave some out for him, he'll just steal it!

 

Ketkrókur (Meat-Hook, December 23th), he steals meat, gripping it with a hook! Another steals sausages!

 

Þvörusleikir (Spoon-Licker, December 15th), he steals spoons to lick them clean, but there isn’t much food left on spoons, so he is supposed to be scrawny, this one looks well-accommodated with bounteous spoons! Presumably, the spoons quietly reappear in the drawers when little people have forgotten them?

 

You'll have to Google the rest yourselves! And there are a couple of equally (supposedly) execrable parents and a dodgy cat! Many thanks to Brian for the introduction, to something completely different!

R is for Retro Kitsch

The theme we've been revisiting all year, in fact the initial post was last autumn, so it's been over a year! NASA-type astronauts of a cartoony design with rockets of a retro, playroom wallpaper style! TKmaxx seasonal shelfies, I took these weeks ago, and I think they're all sold out now, not something I'd give house-room to, but a fun addition to the trend.

 

Delivering gifts!

 

Scraping the inside of the glass dome!

 

Regolithball fight!

 

I hope they haven't sold-out of these, as I would hope my fellow Brit's have more class, sense, taste and decency, than to spend a tenner on this shite, but I know I'm deluding myself, and Tanyachelle from Essex has already put them on the fridge! Nasty.

I is for Image Dump - Gift Fair 2023 - Christmas Baubles

Taken nearly three years ago, more for my own interest, so the products of several stalls/stands, none of which I recorded the names of, so just more bauble eye-candy as we creep closer to the big day, less than four weeks now!

 

TKMaxx have had these dogs, or something remarkably similar, this year.

 

Resin

 

Pumpkin coach!

 

Bees and bee-keeping related, my late mother would have loved these!

 

Fruits, a bear and a soldier (wantone!), the now defunct Paperchase used to carry the more kitsch stuff like these fruits, but theirs were often very big.

 

Glass drops, give extra structure to the tree, and prevent layering.

And, for those who were asking, I delivered a card several days ago, because I may not see the recipients again before Christmas, and I wouldn't trust the privatised Royal Fail to deliver a turd from their own arse. 

 

The first Christmas sections appeared in stores in mid-August, and while that's ridiculously early, that's capitalism, which is also responsible for the depressing daily-news which Christmas helps us hide from for a while, especially after the quite sudden onset of Autumn this year, nothing wrong with a bit of whimsy, fantasy or tradition in one's life.