More Christmas Decorating Tips For Collectors: Greeting Card & Ephemera Edition

I know a lot of people look forward to Christmas simply because they can rotate their regular collections, swapping out the usual for holiday decorations. But some of us *cough-me* resist doing this.

Sure, it makes perfect sense, and more space, to pack up the usual collectibles, put them into the Christmas decoration boxes, and have hubby take them back to the attic or basement. But the way I see it, the holiday season is the time of year when you have the most visitors — and I want them to marvel at my stuff. So I’m continuing my Christmas decorating tips for collectors, looking for more ways to integrate our collectibles into our holiday decorating.

If you collect vintage or retro toys, of course you can pile them up around the tree to show them off (toys are so holiday), but what if you, like I, collect old paper?

Over at the Happy Holidays Blog, Len shows us how to decorate the tree using party horns, rattles and party hats from the 1920’s to the 1960’s.

Christmas Tree Decorated With Vintage Party Horns And Party Hats

Just how do you top that? With a vintage set of the classic fake nose glasses and a gold foil vintage party hat, of course!

Vintage Humor Shop Christmas Tree Top

Not only is this an awesome excuse to leave your tree up for New Year’s, it’s an amazing way to display ephemera for the holidays. How about a tree decorated in vintage postcards, antique trading cards, your retro baseball cards, or your bookmark collection? Add stars to your Christmas tree with vintage movie star cards! It’s simple: Keep each item in an individual plastic sleeve and hang them with ribbon.

But Len didn’t only impress me with his Christmas tree ephemera decorations; his holiday decorating was even inspired by ephemera — by a vintage magazine illustration! Gotta love Len; he might even get me excited about decorating my Christmas tree again!

Since we’re speaking of ephemera, I have to show you Annette’s idea for displaying holiday cards — the secret is the paper clip, which safely holds the card in place.

Safely Display Greeting Cards

Sure, lots of us have done something similar, but often the cards are taped or pined to the ribbon and that certainly doesn’t preserve them well, either for your personal memories or future collectors. And that yarn or string version in which you place the cards in a ‘V’ over the string, well, we all know how much room that takes up — and how well those cards don’t stay put. So try Annette’s suggestion and both your sanity and the cards are preserved.

Plus, you can do this to display your vintage greeting cards and other smaller ephemera items too. Just keep each piece of old fragile paper in a plastic sleeve, and let the festive silver paper clip show them off!